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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH 



' is 



MATHEW CAREY 



COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY PRESS 

SALES AGENTS 

NEW YORK : 

LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
3C-32 West 27TH Street 

LONDON : 

HENRY FROWDE 
Amen Corner, E.C. 

TORONTO : 

HENRY FROWDE 
25 Richmond Street, W. 



MATHEW CAREY 

EDITOR, AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER 

A STUDY IN AMERICAN LITERARY DEVELOPMENT 



BY 

EARL L. BRADSHER 



Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for 

THE Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty 

OF Philosophy, Columbia University 



NEW YORK 
1912 



"p 






Copyright, 191 2 
By The Columbia University Press 

Printed from type January, 1912 



JUv ' ^4 



Press of 

The new era printing company 

lancaster. pa 



lilts Monograph has been approved by the Department of Eng - 
Ush a?id Comparative Literature in Columbia University as a contri- 
bution to knowledge worthy of publication. 

A. H. THORNDIKE, 

Secretary . 



PREFACE 

Mathew Carey, the subject of this study, after a lapse of three 
quarters of a century, has survived in chronological outlines 
and literary histories as the author of a History of the Yellow 
Fever, The Olive Branch, and of numerous works on political 
economy and a bewildering variety of subjects that defy classi- 
fication.^ As such he is not unworthy of study by the close 
student of American literature and history ; but were he note- 
worthy as an author alone, an essay, rather than a monograph, 
would probably be his due. Carey's real claim to consideration 
is as a publisher, and, to a lesser extent, editor, and author. Our 
young civilization of a century ago, whether within the sound 
of the Atlantic or on that shifting belt known vaguely as the 
frontier needed a medium thru which literature could reach it 
in order that it might outgrow its provincialness and painful 
self consciousness. America itself was largely adequate, under 
proper stimulus, to produce a literature; and any omission 
could easily be filled from the mature literatures of Europe. 
Such a medium and such a stimulus Mathew Carey, better 
than any one else in this country, supplied for over half a 
century. At this formative period he was able to direct the 
taste of his public in a way not in the slightest degree possible 
for the publisher of today when the multiplicity of publishing 
houses, of authors, and of already developed tastes defies any 
attempt at control. From 1785 to 1817 Carey was the sole 
owner, and from 1817 to 1824 he was actively at the head of 
the greatest publishing and distributing firm in this country,^ 

^ The titles of his books, pamphlets, and speeches occupy four pages of 
notes and seven of text in the Bihliotheca Americana. 

^ The titles of the various firms of which he was the founder or fore- 
runner were as follows: Mathew Carey, 1787-1817; M. Carey & Son, 1817- 
1821 ; M. Carey & Sons, 1821-1824; Carey & Lea 1824. Subsequently 
Edward L. Carey, a son of Mathew Carey, was admitted. The business 
was divided in 1829 when Henry C. Carey and Isaac Lea (afterward Carey, 
Lea & Blanchard, and then Lea & Blanchard) formed a firm as publishers 

vii 



Vlll 

and tho his formal connection with the house ended in the 
latter year there is no doubt that thru his sons he was influen- 
tial, in its conduct until a much later period. Fortunately all 
the documents relating to his business from 1787 to 1823 are 
preserved, and they form one of the most interesting and valu- 
able sources of information on the publishing business in 
America. 

Since it is very largely upon these documents that the pres- 
ent study is based the question naturally arises. How far can 
the business of these firms be regarded as typical of that of 
the entire country and how far do their publications and their 
sales of the books of other publishers represent the tastes of 
the reading public as a whole and not merely those of a section 
or class ? The reasons for believing it to be typical, and there- 
fore of value in enabling one accurately to trace the develop- 
ment of literary culture in America are numerous. It repre- 
sents all phases of the business of the largest firm in Philadel- 
phia, the acknowledged literary center of America during 
most of the period covered by this study. There was little 
or no specialization of publication as yet ; so that when 
we examine the publications of Carey (and of his successors) 
we may be fairly sure that no other publisher is issuing a 
radically different class of books. We feel that this must be 

exclusively, continued to the present day as Lea & Febriger, two members 
of the firm being M'athew Carey's great-grandchildren. When the firm was 
divided Edward L. Carey and Abram Hart formed the firm of Carey & 
Hart. With them we are not concerned. The account books begin Janu- 
ary I, 1787; the correspondence received, 1788. The correspondence sent 
out is very irregularly kept, or, an assumption that is probably more just 
to the various firms, has subsequently been misplaced. By a careful esti- 
mate the number of volumes is 510. Of this number 145 volumes, quarto, 
are letters received, forty are copies of those sent out. The remaining 325 
volumes are made up of account books, day books, journals, receipt books, 
stock books, warehouse books, exchange lists, subscription lists, memo- 
randum books, bills of lading, and all other material necessary to a com- 
plete business record. Between 1823 and 1854 there is a gap in the 
record. By chance, however, three volumes of letters sent out have sur- 
vived covering the two periods of June 17, 1834 to August 6, 1837, and 
January 2, 1841, to June 10, 1842. After 1854. the firm, then known as 
Lea & Blanchard, published medical books almost exclusively. 



IX 

the correct conclusion when we examine the exchange Hsts 
and notices of forthcoming pubHcations which were sent out 
by various firms. The general class is always the same, and 
even the titles have a striking uniformity. The general nature 
and purpose of other firms was, then, very similar. As there 
is no great number of inquiries for books not kept on hand, it 
it a logical inference that the scope of the reading of the entire 
country fell fairly well within the limits of the literature dis- 
seminated by the firm in question, for the wide distribution of 
its business — from Castine, Maine, in the north to St. Louis and 
New Orleans on the west and south — indicates that the general 
demands of the country could be supplied. In any case the 
business must be typical of a large part of the south, for the 
firm was so well established there that it had no formidable 
competitor. The intense rivalry of a later period for the 
works of British authors shows that a large number of pub- 
lishers were on the lookout for similar works. 

The subject of this monograph was suggested by Professor 
W. P. Trent of Columbia University, under whom it was my 
privilege to study for almost three years. I, least of all, 
should be inclined to underestimate the breadth and the cathol- 
icity of judgment that so strikingly characterize the scholar- 
ship of Professor Trent and that are so abidingly felt by every 
student who has come under his influence, but it is above all 
as a personal friend that I wish here to express my gratitude 
to him. 

I feel also that I am deeply indebted to Mr. Charles M. Lea, 
of Lea and Febiger, Publishers, Philadelphia. Mr. Lea has 
in charge the documents without which this study could not 
have been brought to completion. He has met, with a cheer- 
ful courtesy which it is a pleasure to acknowledge, every de- 
sire of mine regarding the material at his disposal. To his 
father, the late Henry C. Lea, whose name is known to every 
student of history, I am under obligations for having read the 
manuscript and having made several valuable additions. It 
is in this same connection that one of my most direct obliga- 
tions to Professor Trent is due. There are few pages that 
have not been bettered by his suggestions. The manuscript 



has been read, also, by Professor Brander Matthews and Pro- 
fessor A. H. Thorndike of Columbia University, and by Pro- 
fessor C. N. Greenough of Harvard University, to all of 
whom I am under obligations for suggestions. Mr. Henry 
Carey Baird of Philadelphia and Mr. Albert Matthews of 
Boston have given me pamphlets of value bearing upon the 
subject. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



I. The First Steps : Journalist and Editor i 

II. Material Conditions of Publishing and Distributing 
at the End of the Eighteenth and the Beginning 
of the Nineteenth Century 13 

III. The Dependence upon Europe 29 

IV. The Growing Feeling of Nationalism and the Rise 

of American Literature 49 

V. The Struggle of American Literature against the 
Exploitation of Foreign Authors by American 

Publishers 79 

Appendixes 1 14 

Bibliography 136 

Index 140 



XI 



MATHEW CAREY 



CHAPTER I 

The First Steps: Journalist and Editor 

Mathew Carey was born in Dublin, January 28, 1760/ of 
well-to-do parents. His education was that of the average 
boy of his time and circumstances. Unlike most boys however 
he had very early decided upon the trade which he wished to 
follow. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to a book- 
seller. This was accomplished thru his own efforts; for his 
father, while offering him the choice of any other of the 
twenty-five corporations in Dublin, refused to aid him in his 
resolution to become a printer and bookseller. In this posi- 
tion he had ample chance to satisfy his omnivorous appetite 
for reading, and the desire, not less strong, it seems, to rush 
into print. His first essay as a writer, at about the age of 
seventeen, was a severe condemnation of duelling, in a news- 
paper article in the Hibernian Journal in 1777. Years after 
in America he was to give a " practical illustration of the text." 

^ The published accounts of the life of Carey are very few in number. 
Those given below are all that I have been able to find. 

American Bookseller, The, Vol. XVII, No. 3, New York, Feb. i, 1885. 
Editorial Contributions to the Trade History — Number One. The Carey- 
Baird Centenary, January 25, 1885. Memoir of Mathew Carey, Founder of 
the House, by Henry Carey Baird, with a reproduction of " Carey's Penn- 
sylvania Evening Herald " and Portrait of M. Carey, pp. 59-64. 

Autobiographical Sketches, in a Series of Letters Addressed to a Friend, 
Philadelphia, 1829. i2mo, pp. xvi + 156. This was afterwards republished 
in The New England Magazine (July, 1833, to December 1834, the install- 
ments beginning as follows : V, p. 404, 489 ; VI, 60, 93, 227, 306, 400 ; 
VII, 61, 14s, 239, 320, 401, 481). 

Historical Sketches of Some of the Pioneer Catholics of Philadelphia 
and Vicinity, by Joseph Willcox (a pamphlet without date or place of publi- 
cation containing 51 pages of text and 10 of plates at the end), pp. 17-20. 
2 1 



That intense love of country and of humanity, which was 
to win him the affection and respect of so many thousands in 
his adopted country, was very early shown in a pamphlet 
written in 1779^ in defense of his oppressed fellow Irish Cath- 
olics. Self interest and a propitiatory attitude towards official- 
dom were never at any time strong features of his character. 
Very naturally, then, in dealing with so delicate a subject as 
" The urgent necessity of an immediate repeal of the whole 
Penal Code against the Roman Catholics," the ardent youth 
raised such a storm in governmental circles that his cooler 
headed friends thought best to ship him off to Passy, a village 
near Paris. Here the one extreme of character met the other: 
unhesitating impulsiveness and shrewd worldly knowledge 
came into contact, when Carey was engaged by Benjamin 
Franklin to reprint his dispatches from America. After a few 
months Franklin no longer had need for him, and he went to 
work with Didot le jeune, the greatest printer of his time, 
from whom he must have learned much about the technical 
part of his profession. There is little evidence that Franklin 
had any marked influence upon Carey. The dissimilarity of 
character and the difference in age were probably too great. 
Nor does their acquaintance later in America appear to have 
been other than of the most formal kind. One friendship of 
very great value later he did make — that of La Fayette.^ 

Once more in Dublin, where the storm had blown over, he 
proceeded to get into fresh trouble. In October, 1783, his 
father aided him to establish the Volunteer's Journal, In 
this he boldly defended the manufactures, commerce, and 
political rights of Ireland against the encroachments of Great 
Britain. The career of the Journal he described in after years 

^ The urgent necessity of an immediate repeal of the whole Penal Code 
against the Roman Catholics candidly considered, to which is added an 
inquiry into the prejudices entertained against them; being an appeal to the 
Roman Catholics of Ireland, exciting them to a just sense of their civil and 
religious rights, as citizens of a free nation. 

* While Carey was an exile at Passy an invasion of Ireland was con- 
templated by the French, and La Fayette called upon him to make inquiries 
concerning the political condition of the country. Carey was unable how- 
ever to give him any information of value. 



as " enthusiastic and violent." As "enthusiastic," it excited 
the approbation of the Irish ; as " violent," the disapprobation 
of the English. Carey was finally imprisoned for an article 
in which the Parliament in general and the premier in par- 
ticular were denounced for their Irish policy. After living 
"joyously" in Newgate for a month he was released; but 
dreading the outcome of a suit for libel instituted in behalf 
of the premier, his friends persuaded him to emigrate to 
America, September 7, 1784. 

For a while he hesitated between New York, Baltimore, and 
Philadelphia. He chose the last named because his case seemed 
better known there, and he concluded that the oppression he 
had undergone would gain him friends. There he was to 
remain until his death in 1839. As he had only a dozen 
guineas, and was unknown and friendless, the future did not 
look particularly promising. By chance a fellow passenger 
visiting Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon men- 
tioned Carey's name and situation to the latter. When La 
Fayette arrived a few days later at Philadelphia, he requested 
Carey to call on him. They parted after half an hour's con- 
versation, during which La Fayette promised to recommend 
him to Robert Morris, Thomas Fitzsimmons* and others. 
Nothing whatever was said about financial assistance. Judge 
then of Carey's surprise upon receiving, by letter the next 
morning, four hundred dollars from La Fayette, who had 
already departed for Princeton — a sum which Carey had the 
pleasure of returning to the donor on his next visit to America 
in 1824. 

Thru this gift Carey was enabled immediately to establish 
the Pennsylvania Herald, January 25, 1785. The venture met 

* Thomas Fitzsimmons (1741-1811) a victim of England's oppression of 
the Irish, came to America, probably in 1765, and settled in Philadelphia. 
He was an ardent supporter of the Revolution, and in 1780 his firm gave 
5G5000 to aid the cause. He also raised and commanded a company of 
militia, and served at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In 1782 he 
was a member of the Continental Congress, and, in 1787, a delegate in the 
framing of the Constitution. He was a representative to the first Congress, 
a strong advocate of a protective tariff up to 1795, and an opponent of uni- 
versal suffrage. 



with scant success until, on August 2"^, 1785, a regular series 
of the debates of the House of Assembly was begun in its 
columns. This was a new departure in American journalism, 
and greatly increased the popularity of the paper. The inevi- 
table political alignment soon took place; and Carey, Anti- 
Federalist, in a short while found himself engaged in a bitter 
controversy with the leader of the Federalists, Colonel Eleazer 
Oswald. Not content with the opportunities afforded by his 
newspaper, Carey published The Plagi Scurriliad, a Hudi- 
brastic Poem, addressed to Col. Oswald. The Colonel's retort 
was a challenge. In the duel that followed, Carey, lame since 
early childhood, received just above the knee a wound that 
was not healed for fifteen or sixteen months. 

During this period the Pennsylvania Herald seems to have 
been discontinued, so that Carey was free to start another 
venture. In October, 1786, he began the Columbian Maga- 
zine. Evidently this was expected to be a very lucrative publi- 
cation for there were five partners ; but by the end of the year 
Carey had withdrawn. In January, 1787, he issued the first 
number of the American Museum. With this date begins his 
real influence and importance in American literature. 

The magazine, at least in America, was yet in its experi- 
mental stage. Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Bradford in 
1741 had issued the first monthly — The General Magazine 
and Historical Chronicle of all the British Plantations in Amer- 
ica,^ but there had not been enough pioneers in the field to 
clear the road for the newcomers. Warned by the ill fortune 
of all his other ventures, it was not without considerable mis- 
givings that Carey attempted a new one. He seems to have 
turned to Jeremy Belknap, already well known as a literary 
man and one well qualified to give advice on literary projects. 
Belknap's reply, written from Boston, February 2, 1787, was, 
in part, as follows: 

"... Several attempts have been made within my memory 
both here & at the Southward to establish such a repository of 
Literature, but after a year or two they have uniformly failed. 

•A. H. Smyth, The Philadelphia Magazines and Their Contributors, 
Philadelphia, 1892, p, 22. 



To what other Causes this failure may be ascribed I will not 
say — but this appears to me to be one, viz., the too frequent 
publication of them. We are fond of imitating our European 
Brethren (I speak of scientific Brethren) in their monthly 
productions — without considering the difference between our 
Circumstances & theirs. A Country full of learned men, full 
of business, literary, political, mercantile — having inexhaustible 
Resources of knowledge of every kind — may be able to keep 
up one or two monthly vehicles of Information so as to make 
a respectable appearance but such a Country as this is not yet 
arrived at such a pass of Improvement. Modesty is best in all 
new attempts & it is certainly the wisest way to begin as we 
expect to out. For these reasons were I to have the direction 
of a Magazine I would propose to publish it Quarterly & to 
increase its size as material should occur. I should also con- 
duct it partly on the plan of the annual Register so as to estab- 
lish a Connected history of Events, taking Care to keep far 
enough behind so that any Series or Period should lapse in 
point of action before the Relation of it begin. ..." 

To these admonitions Carey seems to have paid considerable 
attention, but he found that Belknap had underestimated the 
quantity of material at hand. 

The first article, Consolations for America, by Benjamin 
Franklin, is indicative of the tone of the new publication. 
Hitherto all the magazines published in this country had 
looked across the ocean for their models. The American 
Revolution had nearly paralyzed the publishing business, and 
magazines published before that time were, almost without 
exception, intensely loyal in their attitude. Bradford, always 
complaisant to British suggestions and influences, had, in his 
American Magazine, strongly supported the crown against 
the French. Paine and Brackenridge had too often made their 
magazines merely a medium of attack upon the Tories. The 
Columbia Magazine had steered clear of all political problems, 
but had given much of its space to manufactures and agricul- 
ture. Now with the American Museum a complete American 
magazine begins. While avoiding any offensive partisan atti- 
tude, it nevertheless reflects the unsettled state of the country 
in those critical years before the adoption of the Constitution. 
Its articles are of so varied a nature that it presents the nearest 
approximation yet obtained to what our forefathers conceived 



a magazine should be — a treasury of all human knowledge. 

Tho to the Columbian Magazine, in its issue of August, 
1789, fell the honor of introducing America's greatest novelist 
before Cooper — Charles Brockden Brown'^ — the service of 
Carey in giving the literary talent of our country a medium of 
expression may be best judged by the number of familiar 
names found in the Museum. The second article, in which 
we get a glimpse of the politically unorganized condition of the 
country — Patriots and Heroes — the Revolution Is Not Over 
— is by Dr. Benjamin Rush. Paine's Common Sense is re- 
printed. Philip Freneau, Trumbull, and Col. David Hum- 
phreys are the most voluminous contributors of poetry, which 
forms, on an average, one-fifth of each number. Trumbull's 
M' Fingal is printed in full, as is also Col. Humphreys' Poem 
on the Happiness of America, while to Francis Hopkinson, 
whose name occurs repeatedly as contributor of both prose 
and poetry in the lighter vein, is due the credit of starting, thru 
his Dialogue HI of Dialogues of the Dead,^ the " muck rake " 
in American literature, or to be more liberal, the somnolent 
street-sweeping brigade of Philadelphia. Anthony Benezet 
utters a protest against slavery, and Governor Livingston 
and others use the Museum as their regular organ. It is true 
that not all of the articles signed by these men occur here for 
the first time, but the majority do; and the minority gain an 
enlarged circle of readers. As meager as was our literary out- 
put at this period, it must have been much more so but for 
such a medium of expression. To that comparative meager- 
ness Carey attests when he says the opinion had been enter- 
tained that material enough to run a magazine was not obtain- 
able; but he adds that, contrary to that expectation, material 
beyond his needs rapidly accumulated. This was not strange, 
considering his ideas of what a magazine should be : for tho 
he always gave the preference to American writers and articles 
he felt at liberty to draw from any source, published or unpub- 
lished, on practically any subject. 

■^ Brown's Rhapsodist. A. H. Smyth, Philadelphia Magazines and their 
Contributors, Philadelphia, 1892, p. 153. 
*Vol. I, pp. 223-6. 



The historical spirit was always strong in Carey : we find 
him, in the preface to the number for January, 1788 (Vol. 
Ill), lamenting the loss to posterity of letters of commanders, 
accounts of battles, authentic state papers, and similar material, 
published during the Revolution, of which he had unique 
copies. In order to prevent the obscurity of some of the im- 
portant events of the Revolution, he determines to publish as 
many as possible of these documents in the Museum, which is 
in fact a veritable mine to the historian of the period. Noah 
Webster also seems to have had the same idea of the his- 
torical value of a magazine, for on September 3, 1788, we find 
him, besides asking that Carey publish his Progress of Dulness 
in the Museum, suggesting that Winthrop's Journal should be 
added. About a month before, Timothy Dwight had sent " a 
very sensible Dissertation on the language of the Muhhekaneen 
Indians by Dr. Edwards of New Haven. I think it well suited 
to your design, fraught with valuable instruction to the world. 
Let me advise you to engage the assistance of that gentleman, 
as I know of none more learned & able in this country." 
Truly if the reader of that day found Hopkinson and a few 
— a very few — others too frivolous, he had but to turn 
the page. 

As yet there was no idea of " art for art's sake " and Wash- 
ington expresses but the common view of his time when he 
writes to Carey : " I will venture to pronounce, as my senti- 
ment, that a more useful literary plan has never been under- 
taken in America, or one more deserving of public encourage- 
ment. . . . For my part, I entertain an high idea of the utility 
of periodical publications; insomuch that I could heartily de- 
sire copies of the Museum and Magazines, as well as common 
Gazettes, might be spread through every city, town, and vil- 
lage in America. I consider such easy vehicles of knowledge, 
more happily calculated than any other, to preserve the liberty, 
stimulate the industry, and meliorate the morals of an en- 
lightened and free people."^ There was as yet extremely little 

•This letter and the letter to Poe, on pages 112-113, are the only letters 
quoted in this study which, so far as I know, have been previously pub- 
lished. This will be found in the Preface to The Museum. John Dickinson, 



8 

call for mere amusement : the masses needed and were clamor- 
ing for education. Life was too stern and practical for much 
else. One correspondent, a little later, enters a vigorous pro- 
test against the loss of space in an illustrated spelling book; 
besides, he writes, his pupils wear out the pages by turning 
them over to look at the pictures. The limited number of 
books and the comparative narrowness of scholarship created 
a public of deliberate readers, and the ability, necessary to the 
modern scholar, of skimming thru many books was unknown 
and unneeded. 

At the beginning of Volume 3, January to June, 1788, 
Carey prints a list of his subscribers by states and countries, 
which shows the widespread habit of reading even at that 
period. With the exception of Vermont and New Hampshire 
all the states and territories of that time are represented. Con- 
sidering the struggle for material existence and the slowness 
and uncertainty of transportation facilities this is a good show- 
ing. The Boston magazines probably account for the absence 
of subscribers in Vermont and New Hampshire. All the 
European countries prominent at that time, with the exception 
of Spain, are represented, and an unusual number of the West 
Indian Islands. The Museum well deserved the name of " the 
first really successful magazine in America." Yet the life of 
the editor was never above penury. At no time, according to 
his own statement, was he possessed of more than four hundred 
dollars.^*^ The subscription of two dollars and forty cents a 

William Livingston, Edmond Randolph, Ezra Stiles, Timothy Dwight, 
Francis Hopkinson, and many others sent letters or resolutions (published 
in the Preface) strongly approving of the project. 

^° This condition arose also from the fact that more than half of the 
subscribers lived in remote situations, often five hundred miles away, and 
remittances were slow. It was frequently necessary to dun these sub- 
scribers, thru hired collectors, at a heavy expense. Carey printed more 
copies than he had any immediate sale for in the vain hope that the sub- 
scription list would be ultimately enlarged. When he became a publisher 
of general literature he, in spite of the warnings of the Museum, con- 
tinued for several years to publish and handle a stock about twice as large 
as his trade justified. It was necessary to borrow money heavily, and *' I 
was shaved so close by the latter class (the usurers) that they almost 
skinned me alive. I have owed for months together from three to six 



9 

year was entirely too low for the thousand or eleven hundred 
pages furnished ; remote subscribers refused to remit promptly ; 
and too many copies were printed in expectation of a larger 
subscription. 

In December, 1792, the last numbers of the Museum and of 
the Columbian Magazine were issued. Both editors assign the 
same reason : " The present law respecting the establishment 
of the post-office, which totally prohibits the circulation of 
monthly publications through that channel on any other terms 
than that of paying the highest postage on private letters or 
packages."" Carey mentions as an additional cause the ex- 
tension of his business as a bookseller, which renders him 
unable to give the Museum proper attention. Only once more 
was he to introduce a periodical to the public — The Thespian 
Monitor and Dramatic Critic , by Barnaby Bangbar, Esq., 
(1809) — a publication which did not live long. 

The year after the suspension of the Museum a yellow fever 
plague swept over Philadelphia, and for a summer all industry 
was paralyzed. The readers of Arthur Mervyn will recall the 
vivid pages in which Brown describes the suffering of this sum- 
mer. With more fidelity to fact^^ Carey has given us a complete 

thousand dollars, borrowed from day to day, and sometimes in the morning 
to be paid at one o'clock the same day, to meet checks issued the preceding 
day. The horrors of this situation can scarcely be conceived by any person 
not experiencing them. I have worked, lame as I was, from nine or ten 
o'clock in the morning, till two or half past two, trying to borrow money." 
Yet " during this whole period, I scarcely ever disappointed a lender." 
{Autobiography in the New England Magazine, Vol. VI, pp. 227-8.) 

It might be added in this connection that Carey's reason for writing the 
Autobiography was a desire to encourage those struggling under such 
difficulties as he had met, and to warn them against bad business methods. 
The motto of his sunny yet indomitable nature was, apparenly, Never 
Despair. 

"Benjamin Franklin, in his Autobiography, under the year 1729, says 
that Bradford, the postmaster of Philadelphia, refused to allow his paper 
to be sent by post. Carey has an implied charge of a similar nature 
against that dignitary of 1792. 

" " While the upper rooms of this building (the hospital at Bush Hill) 
are filled with the sick and the dying, the lower apartments are the scenes 
of carousals and mirth. The wretches who are hired, at enormous wages, 
to tend to the sick and convey away the dead, neglect their duty, and 



10 

history of the epidemic in A Short Account of the Malignant 
Fever, Prevalent in the Year 1793, in the City of Philadelphia. 
The Short Account was one of the most popular of its author's 
works. It reached at least eleven editions. It was printed in 
French at Philadelphia, in German at Lancaster, and in Dutch 
at Haarlem, all in the same year, 1794. A large part of the 
second edition, which appeared only twelve days after the first, 
was sent to Europe to show creditors there the reasons for 
non remittance. As a history based on documents, and aiming 
at accuracy alone, it lacks the vividness found in Arthur 
Mervyn; and it has none of the unforgetable incidents that 
fill the pages of Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year. Yet 
Carey appreciated the great human drama going on around 
him. " Arthur Mervyn," he writes, " gives a vivid and terri- 
fying picture, probably not too highly colored, of the horrors 
of that period." During this time he was not a mere idle on- 
looker or a dilettante writer analyzing the agonies of his suffer- 
ing brother man, but an active worker in two important com- 
mittees whose members were dying around him in the discharge 
of their dangerous duties. Tho he was always ready to give 
the best side of human nature, to choose the brightest ex- 
amples, the impression he produces is one of horror yet not 
the horror produced by the trained literary artist, but that 
which is inherent in the subject. 

After his duel with Col. Oswald, Carey's life, while at the 
other extreme from ease, was at least peaceful until William 
Cobbett, intoxicated by the eloquent pages of Tom Paine, 
came to Philadelphia in 1792. For a while he supported him- 
self by giving lessons in French. One day a French pupil read 
a diatribe against England instead of his usual lesson. This 
moved Cobbett to write a pamphlet in defense of his country. 
Quite naturally for a man of his abiHty and aggressiveness he 
soon found himself allied to the Federalists, who were friendly 

consume the cordials which are provided for the patients, in debauchery 
and riot." {Arthur Mervyn, Philadelphia, 1857, Vol. I, p. 184.) It seems 
hardly necessary to refute this. All evidence now accessible points to the 
fact that controlled as it was by Carey, Rush, and other citizens of un- 
questioned integrity and ability the hospital was as near a model as the 
medical science of that day could make it. 



11 

to England. About this time Dr. Joseph Priestley also had 
come to America, and Cobbett took occasion to attack him in 
Observations on Priestley's Emigration, which is, in fact, an 
anti-revolutionary tirade. The Observations were taken to 
Thomas Bradford, the printer; but he, being an ardent enemy 
to Great Britain, refused them. Cobbett then offered them to 
Carey, and it was thru his refusal that their quarrel first 
began. Immediate hostilities were occasioned by the oppo- 
nents of Cobbett bringing Carey's name into their pamphlets. 
Some correspondence ensued between the two men, and the 
threatened controversy seemed in a fair way to be healed when 
John Ward Fenno^^ attacked Carey, who was a Democrat, 
thru the columns of his United States Gazette. The article 
was copied by Cobbett in his Porcupine's Gazette.^* Carey's 
remonstrances were met by an angry answer, and Fenno's 
squibs continued to be copied. In the controversy that ensued 
Carey wrote and published the two pamphlets, A Plum Pud- 
ding for the Humane, Chaste, Valiant, and Enligtened Peter 

"John Ward Fenno succeeded his father as editor of the Gazette of 
the United States. Carey calls him " a rash, thoughtless, and impudent 
young man." The Gazette was the medium thru which John Adams, when 
vice-president, whiled away his time and softened his disgust at his 
official position in a series of articles entitled " Discourses on Davilla " 
being an analysis of Davilla's History of the Civil Wars of France in the 
1 6th Century, 

" The Political Censor, a monthly which ran for eight numbers had 
been Cobbett's chief organ ; but monthly attacks seemed too far between 
for this militant spirit, and so on February i, 1797, he issued proposals 
for Porcupine's Gazette and Daily Advertiser, which ran nearly three years. 
Cobbett claimed in after years that he was mainly influential in keeping 
this country from joining France in the war then waging, and it is prob- 
able that he did exert considerable influence. Not content with political 
warfare, Cobbett entered the medical controversy centering around Dr. 
Benjamin Rush's method of curing the yellow fever by severe bleeding. The 
Doctor brought suit for libel because of Cobett's attacks in the Rushlight 
and elsewhere. The verdict of $5000 against Cobbett ruined him financially, 
and was the chief cause of his return to England in June, 1800. (See 
appendix I, page 114.) Those Americans who mourn over the loss to our 
literature when Sandys, Clough and others departed, and who speculate 
over the might-have-beens had the ancestors of Hunt and Shelley seen fit to 
remain in America, are strangely ungrateful for the very tangible four 
or five volumes of virile prose which Cobbett presented us. 



12 

Porcupine and The Porcupinead; a Hudibrastic Poem, 1799. 
The title page of the former has a cut of a porcupine hanging 
from a street lamp. This closed the controversy, as far as 
Carey was concerned. In 181 5 we learn from their corre- 
spondence that the two former enemies are now cooperating 
in the cause of liberty,^^ for during the period between 1800 
and 181 5 the political opinions of Cobbett have radically 
changed: from a Tory he has passed to the most ardent of 
Liberalists. As a reformer of the ballot, as an advocate of 
agricultural interests and as a bitter opponent of a standing 
army he sought and obtained the aid of Carey. Both men 
cooperated in opposing the reactionary tendencies which vis- 
ibly followed the Congress of Vienna. 

"See Appendix, I, p. 114 ff. 



CHAPTER II 

Material Conditions of Publishing and Distributing at 

THE End of the Eighteenth and Beginning 

OF THE Nineteenth Century 

When the firm of Mathew Carey was established in 1785, 
printing in America, while not exactly in its infancy, was yet 
hardly able to maintain itself without aid from Europe. The 
first printing press manufactured in America was made at 
Germantown in 1750. At the same place, in 1772, the first 
regular foundry for casting type was built by Christopher 
Sauer (or Sower), with implements imported from Germany 
and intended solely for German types. Three years before, 
Abel Buel of Connecticut had manufactured a few fonts of 
long primer, but this was the first regular foundry.^ Yet for 
two and a half centuries before 1785 the Americans could 
boast of books printed in the New World. According to the 
Archbishop of St. Domingo a book called The Spiritual Lad- 
der was published at Mexico in 1532. No trace of it has ever 
been found; but Senor Icazbalceta, our highest authority on 
such points, thinks that such a book really was issued about 
1537. There is no doubt, however, that a Breve y mas com- 
pendiosa doctrina Christiana en lengua Mexicana y Castellana 
was published in 1539.^ This publication antedates by just 
an even century the first printing north of Mexico, The Free- 
man's Oath and an Almanac calculated for New England, by 
Mr. Pierce, Mariner, printed by Stephen Daye at Cambridge^ 
on a press which the shrewd president of Harvard had added 
to the equipment of his college when he married the widow of 

^Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, Albany, 1874, Vol. 
II, p. 27. 

^ Richard Garnett, Art. " Early Spanish-American Printing." In The 
Library, London, 1900, Vol I, p. 140. 

' Samuel A. Green, Ten facsimile reproductions relating to New England, 
Boston, 1902, p. 13. 

13 



14 

a printer who had died on the passage over. The first real 
book, however, was the Bay Psalme Book which Daye printed 
the next year. In 1675 John Foster set up the first press in 
Boston.* WilHam Bradford, of Leicester, England, established 
the first printing press in Philadelphia, in 1682. Religious dis- 
putes caused him to withdraw to New York, where in 1693 
he set up the first press in that city.^ Three years before the 
first paper mill had been erected at Germantown, a place 
which seems very prominent in the early history of printing 
in America. In 1710 the second was established there also.® 
One hundred years later there were one hundred and ninety- 
five, of which Massachusetts had forty and Pennsylvania 
sixty. Of this number seven were within Philadelphia, which 
in the same year could boast of fifty-one printing houses, and 
one hundred and fifty-three printing presses. Boston had 
established the first Anglo-American newspaper, in April 
1704, and on December 21, 17 19, had preceded Philadelphia 
by one day in the establishment of a second.'^ Before 1740 
Massachusetts printed more than all the other colonies com- 
bined, and not until about 1760 had they equalled her output. 
New York and Connecticut produced a few volumes, and in 
Virginia and Maryland a few books were artistically printed. 
After about 1760 Philadelphia became a serious rival for 
Boston; and commercial and political supremacy soon decided 
the matter in favor of the former. 

It was, then, to the most progressive and flourishing city in 
the country that Mathew Carey came in 1784, and there began 
alone to build up the business which was to be of so much bene- 
fit to American authors and readers. Colonel Oswald, who 
viewed his operations with a jealous eye, had forced him to pay 
more than the price of a new one for a second hand press, and 
his capital was practically nothing; yet in a few years he was 
able to make the statement that from 1792 to 1799 he did busi- 
ness to the amount of $3CX),ooo, and that he frequently em- 
ployed for months at a time as many as one hundred and fifty 

* Green, p. 17. 

^ Henry O. Houghton, Early Printing in America, Montpelier, 1894, p. 23^ 

" Thomas, Vol. I, p. 20. 

' Ibid., Vol. II, p. 7. 



15 

men at printing. The proceeds of two works alone published 
at this period, the very popular Guthrie's Geography and Gold- 
smith's Animated Nature, amounted to $60,000 or more. The 
2500 copies of the former retailed at $16.00 and 3000 of the 
latter at $9.00. 

As already noted, one of Carey's reasons for the discon- 
tinuance of the Museum was the increase of his business as 
publisher and book dealer. In a letter to his brother, Rev. 
Mr. Carey of Dublin, May 14, 1792, he writes : 

"... My situation never promised so fair as at present. I 
have lately entered pretty largely into the printing & book- 
selling business. I have printed a considerable number of 
books on my own acct — the history of New York — Necker on 
religion — Beauties of Poetry — Beatties morals — Ladies' Li- 
brary — Garden of the Soul — Douay Bible — McFingal, & 
several smaller works. I am this day going to put to press 
the Muses' Magazine — & as soon as I can procure paper fit 
for the purpose shall print Blair's lectures in two large octavo 
volumes. 

" I have written to London, Dublin & Glasgow for a supply 
of foreign books without which I cannot have a proper assort- 
ment . . . ." 

From this comparatively modest beginning, Carey had by 
1820 — about the time when Philadelphia began to lose her 
proud preeminence as the literary and commercial center of 
America — built up a trade that extended to all parts of the 
United States and had regular exchanges in several parts of 
Europe and South America. Even during the war of 181 2, 
a period second only to the Revolution in its deterrent effects 
upon the spread of literature, and still more conspicuous for 
its dearth of creative writers, the business of the firm was 
fairly extensive. The exchange book for June 12, 1813, to 
February 23, 1814, for example, shows how widespread 
Carey's exchange list was, especially towards the north. At 
New York City there were fourteen correspondents, at Boston 
sixteen, and in proportion at other places, some of them now 
never heard of in connection with the publishing trade.^ That 

* The early immigrants were in many cases comparatively well educated ; 
and wherever they went it was but natural that they should demand reading 
matter and attempt to supply that demand. There were as yet no central 



16 

the South is not represented more frequently in the exchange 
books is not due, as yet, so much to the fact that the South 
read less, tho that is probable, as to the comparative scarcity 
of printing presses and to the large number of branches and 
subscription agents maintained there. The statement has been 
made that more fine books were sold in antebellum times in 
Charleston, South Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, than in 
any other cities of the United States. Even as early as 1809 
we have a demand for fine bindings from a branch at Dum- 
fries, Virginia. However this may be, the following sentence 
occurs in a letter to Washington Irving March 2, 1841, con- 
cerning the publication of a volume of poems by Miss David- 
son : " The great quantities however that formerly sold when 
the South & S. West were opened, cannot now be managed." 

At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of 
the nineteenth the distributing of the products of the press 
presented a grave problem partly solved today by wide adver- 
tising, by the publishing of trade lists, and by rapid communi- 
cation. The exchange lists referred to above were obviously 
one of the best means of keeping a full and varied supply of 
books. No publisher had yet attempted anything like the 
comprehensive series or libraries issued today. Indeed the 
choice of books — I speak of the period before Scott, Dickens 
and other British novelists were republished by a dozen firms 
as soon as the first number could be secured — seems very 
arbitrary; and tho the works issued were of the same general 
class it was obviously impossible for one publisher to cover 
the entire field of staple English reprints. Hence the method 

places which overshadowed all lesser ones as publishing and distributing 
centers. Labor had not yet sought a special market, and rapid communi- 
cation had not drawn outlying towns together. Therefore when a printer 
made his way into a small village and set up his shop, orders for printing 
work of all sorts came to him in fair abundance from the districts nearby. 
To judge by the evidence at hand, Reading, Lancaster, and Germantown in 
Pennsylvania, Brattleboro, Vermont, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Hartford, 
Connecticut, and Burlington, New Jersey were very early fairly well known 
to the publishing trade. Pittsburg and Cincinnati also come in for some 
notice at a period when they must have been hardly more than mere villages. 
Dumfries, Virginia, and Whitehall, North Carolina, were distributing sta- 
tions of first rate importance. 



17 

of offering a certain number of books in exchange for others 
became the most usual way for the larger dealers and the pub- 
lishers to maintain a full stock. Once in the hands of the dis- 
tributors the problem was to get them to the more remote 
districts. 

Bad as communication was in America, it seems to have 
been considered good by new arrivals. On November 9, 
1789, Carey writes to his brother : " I have traveled a great 
deal of late; not less in the three months of July, August and 
September, than 1300 miles. In three weeks of the last month, 
I rode 650 miles, on a horse that cost me only 22 dollars. 
Hardly in anything is there so strong a difference between the 
inhabitants of this Country & those of England & Ireland, as 
in their ideas of travelling. A journey of 2 or 3 hundred miles 
here is less thought of, than an excursion of forty or fifty 
miles in Ireland. I made slight preparation for the journey 
and the total expense of the 650 miles was not over £8. . . . " 

The object of this journey, no doubt, was to secure sub- 
scribers to the Museum and to collect accounts. It may be 
taken as typical of what a large number of canvassers were 
doing; conspicuous among whom, at a later date, was the 
Rev. Mason L. Weems of Virginia, author of the story of 
George Washington and the hatchet, lives of Marion, Penn, 
Franklin and others. By such means an immense number of 
Carey's quarto Bible, Guthrie's Geography, Goldsmith's Ani- 
mated Nature and Lavoisne & Versey's Atlas were distributed 
over all parts of the country, especially thru the South and 
Southwest. The woes attendant upon the book canvasser in 
the twentieth century were not unknown in the first quarter of 
the nineteenth as is shown by the following letter, which inci- 
dentally exemplifies something more important — the attitude 
towards the productions of American scholarship: 

" Baltimore loth Oct. 1817. 
" Messers M. Carey & Son. 

"... Apropos, I could but mentally laugh the other day 
when you inquired of a person how many subscribers he had 
gained & how long he had been in Philadelphia. He answered 
60 or 70 a week. I suppose he had a prospectus for a Bible, 
a Dictionary, and Directory, Robinson Crusoe, a News Paper 
3 



18 

or an Almanac, which every one were wiUing to possess (even 
then he would have been industrious.) 

" But Sir, with Dr. B's Botany how would the case have 
been? 

" You may in mind assimilate my business to water running 
down hill, but let me tell you it would be more just if you 
compared it to a shad climbing a pine tree. 

" In the first place there isn't more than i to 500 who 
knows what Botany is, that one you've to search for (once in 
3 mos. you may find him unengaged at home) then you have 
to convince him of the utility of an American production of 
this kind (for many possess extensive histories of exotic 
plants), after put down his prejudices against subscription & 
at last wait the will and pleasure of his whole family (when 
composed of girls more easy) and should success attend you, 
you in verity Pat git one whole subscriber!" 

The names of subscribers to costly works were generally, 
after the British fashion, printed and bound in with the vol- 
ume, a subtle way of making vanity pay tribute to the printer. 
John Kelley writes from Calcutta, India, February 24, 1792, 
about a new subscriber to the American Museum: " Only sub- 
scribe John Andrews, Esqr. Calcutta Bengal pretty close to 
General Washington or Dr. Franklin and you may charge at 
least 50 per cent more than you otherwise would for the 
Books." And this too of a man whose " knowledge of books 
and reading is extensive." 

Freight charges are rather hard to determine. There are 
many entries, but the weight is never specified. In 1812 it 
cost twelve and one half cents per foot to send boxes of books 
by water to Baltimore and ten cents to New York City. At 
this time transportation by water was, of course, much cheaper 
than by land ; and we find, even in many small orders, instruc- 
tions given to send by boat rather than by the much quicker 
but more costly stage coach, which was reserved for a later 
day, when every publisher was trying to issue the first number 
of the latest British novel. ^ In 1818 the cost of getting two 

'In 1836 Carey & Hart hired all the seats in the mail stage in order to 
place five hundred copies of Bulwer's Rienzi on the New York market 
before the Harper edition could appear. (J. C. Derby, Fifty Years Among 
Authors, Books and Publishers, New York, 1884, p. 551.) This, says Mr. 



19 

boxes of books, value 2100 francs, from Paris to Bordeaux 
and clear of the harbour was 125.50 francs, of which however 
only sixty were actually carrying charges between the two 
cities. 

Up to about 1800, beyond the occasional letters between the 
different publishers and the exchanges referred to above there 
had been no attempt at cooperation, nor was there need of any. 
Not enough large firms had developed to clash seriously with 
each other by issuing too many editions of the same work. 
Most publishers did a strictly local business, and the remote- 
ness of Carey's greatest rival, Isaiah Thomas of Boston: — 
'' le Didot des Etats-Unis" — had prevented any serious inter- 
ference. Moreover while Carey issued many original works 
of great value, Thomas confined himself largely to those 
already tested by previous publication, the demand for which 
would justify simultaneous editions by other firms. About 
this time, and in some cases a little earlier, a few of the more 
enterprising firms, as Mathew Carey and Benjamin Franklin 
of Philadelphia, Hugh Gaine of New York, and Samuel Hall, 
Greenleaf & West, and Thomas & Andrews of Boston began 
to issue hand lists of their own publications and those of other 
pubhshers, and also of importations.^^ To an outsider seems 
due the first idea of a permanent organization to reduce the 
confusion to harmony. In the correspondence received for 
1800 occurs the following undated letter. 

" Great complaints have been made that the works of the 
most celebrated Europeans, or of the Antients, are not to be 
found in the United States — this is the complaint of Men of 
Letters. 

Henry C. Lea, was frequently done many years earlier by Carey & 
Son. On the same page as the above reference Derby says that one day 
James Fenimore Cooper came to Carey & Hart with manuscript of a novel 
entitled Eleanor Wyllis which was published anonymously ; that Cooper 
never acknowledged the authorship of the book, which was a failure, but 
that Mr. Hart believed Cooper had written it. The copyright was paid 
to him and his receipt taken for it. Lea & Blanchard were the regular 
publishers of Cooper at that time. (The exact date is not given, but it is 
probably 1836.) 

"The first regular book-trade catalog was issued at Boston, in 1804, 
under the title of The Catalogue of all the Books Printed in the United 
States. The number of volumes listed is 1338. 



20 

*' Booksellers or Printers are discouraged from undertaking 
expensive publications for these reasons : 

1. It is tedious to wait for, and expensive to obtain, sub- 
scriptions. 

2. If a work be undertaken without subscriptions, it is not 
probable that a sufficient number would sell in any reasonable 
time to pay the expences, unless they are distributed among 
the Booksellers in the Chief Cities over the Continent. 

" If they should be so distributed it must either be on Com- 
mission, or exchanged, or Sold. All these methods are liable 
to objections. The booksellers are well aware what these ob- 
jections are. 

" Here then there exists great difficulties in the publication 
of valuable and expensive works. 

" Are those difficulties to be removed ? I say yes. But how ? 
Turn over and I will tell you. Let a few of the principal 
Booksellers (men of credit and some wealth) in each State 
erect themselves into a Company to be called The Company of 
Stationers of North America. 

"The object of such an institution would be to assist each 
other in the sale of these books and in making to each other 
expeditious remittances. 

" This would be accomplished by 

1 admitting none in the corporation in the first instance but 
men of known probity, and possessed of Capital. 

2 by forming a small joint Capital in each State for the assist- 
ance of deceased members (sic) or their widows. 

3 by having a Common hall called Stationers Hall (with a 
Clerk) in each State to keep an account of the transactions 
between that State & the other States. 

4 By regulations to prevent interference in the same work. 

5 By making the terms of admission difficult such as being 
apprenticed to one of the society and other requisites. 

6 By the expulsion of a member for infidelity to the Society 
or its members. 

"The present State of the morals of Booksellers in the 
United States requires something of this kind to keep them 
honest punctual & willing to serve each other. If in process 
of time Men should grow better, there would be no occasion 
for associations. We must fit ourselves and our institutions 
to the times, since we cannot alter the Manners and Morals 
of Nature in a sudden. 

" I am told that in general 5CX) copies of any book will pay 
the expenses and a decent profit, if so, what a vast number of 
books must be reprinted if booksellers would only be punctual 
and honest to each other. 



21 

" When this scheme^^ takes place I expect to be appointed 
Clerk to the Stationers Comp. of Philadelphia and perhaps 
Secretary to their federal meeting. 

" It is interesting to compare this plan with what may have suggested it. 
The Stationers' Company of England. On July 12, 1403, those citizens of 
London interested in the production of books petitioned for and obtained 
the right to form themselves into a guild or fraternity. When the scriv- 
eners were superseded by printers the latter sold their sheets to a separate 
class called stationers. This class took the lead of the printers and asso- 
ciated their name with the guild which soon became known as the Com- 
pany of Stationers. An ordinance of the city required that all persons 
carrying on the business of stationers or a kindred trade must enroll them- 
selves as members and become subject to its by-laws. Every member was 
required to enter in the Clerk's book the title of each book or "copy " which 
he claimed as his property to avoid disputed ownership. This is the germ 
of the modern copyright. At first the craft had very narrow means ; and 
to provide funds for an undertaking of any magnitude, several often com- 
bined. The printing in such cases was under the direction of wardens who 
divided the profits, a small portion being set aside for the relief of dis- 
tressed craftsmen. Gradually the craft acquired wealth and power, and in 
1556 it was incorporated under the title of the Masters and Keepers of 
Wardens and Commonality of the Mystery or Art of a Stationer of the 
City of London. The by-laws of the company set forth at this time in- 
clude among other provisions, the following : " No printing presses to be 
erected without first acquainting the M'aster and Wardens ; prohibition to 
all parties, abettors, and assistants against erecting ' a press in a hole ' and 
buying pirated books ; No member to suffer an apprentice to work at un- 
lawful presses or work ; no printer to teach his Art to any but his son 01 
apprentice; no printer who works at an illegal press or on piratical books 
to be admitted as a pensioner ; Law books to be printed by none but the 
patentees ; No Member of the Company to print any unlicensed books ; 
Members privy to the printing, binding or selling unlicensed publications 
to disclose them to the Master and Wardens on pain if stockholders of 
having their dividends sequestered, and if not stockholders to be fined ; 
Pensioners offending to lose their pensions and holders of loan money to 
have their loans called in ; Printers offending to have no stock work for 
one year ; Those who enter copies to be reputed the proprietors and to have 
the sole printing of them ; Penalty for printing importing or publishing 
another person's entered copy; Power to the Master and Wardens to 
search printing houses, warehouses, and shops ; No entered copy to be 
printed by another without assignment." There was an attempt to limit the 
number of apprentices, but the provisions were not very strictly adhered to. 
In 1598 the Company took measures to limit the excessive price of books. 
(Charles Robert Rivington, article, " Notes on the Stationers' Company " 



22 

"A man is a bad carver if he neglect to cut a slice for 
himself. Lithjon/'^^ 

At the top of the letter Carey has written " An Idea." This 
idea he appears to have utilized, in part, in the following year, 
when in December circulars were sent out to all the booksellers 
and printers in the United States pointing out the immense 
advantages to literature and art that would be derived from 
a literary fair such as existed at Leipsic and Frankfort. 
Yearly meetings were to be held alternately in Philadelphia 
and New York. Carey drew up a constitution ; the first meet- 
ing was held at New York, June i, 1802, and Hugh Gaine 
was elected president.^^ The title of the organization was The 
American Company of Booksellers. All publishers and book- 
sellers were invited to attend and bring samples of their work 
or of books they desired to exchange. The project was enthu- 
siastically received, especially by those of the coast towns, 
where the water furnished an easy and cheap method of trans- 
portation. For a few years success attended the plan, but 
soon an unexpected evil overtook it. The less important and 
more remote publishers produced large editions of popular 
works on cheap paper and with worn and broken type, with 
which, by means of the exchange, they flooded the country. 
Naturally the more prominent publishers, the leaders in the 
company, who had in many cases good editions of these books 
on hand, soon withdrew, and the movement collapsed. It had 
however produced one very substantial benefit. In 1802 a $50 
gold medal was oflfered for the best printer's ink, the sample 
to be large enough for practical publication. The same reward 

in The Library New Series, Vol. IV, London, 1903, pp. 355-66. Compare 
Henry B. Wheatley, article " The Stationers' Registers " in The Bibli- 
ographer, London, April, 1882, pp. 130-35, and May, 1892, pp. 171-75.) 

^^ This signature is a complication of flourishes. It appears to read as 
above, but perhaps it is Littlejohn. 

" Mathew Carey, Autobiography, in The New England Magazine, Boston, 
1834, Vol. VI, p. 306. A. Growoll, Book-Trade Bibliography in the United 
States in the XIX Century, New York, 1898, p. iii, says that the organiza- 
tion was accomplished in i8oi, that owing to the epidemic of yellow fever 
the New York booksellers could take no part in the meeting of this year, 
and that Mathew Carey was the first president. 



23 

was given in 1804 for the best paper and also for the best 
binding in American leather. In other words a systematic 
attempt was made to improve the materials of American 
printing. 

Noting the enthusiasm displayed in the organization of the 
American Company of Booksellers the school-book publishers 
united about 1802, under the title of The New York Associa- 
tion of Booksellers. " To lessen the number of imported 
Books " their constitution reads, " which are now becoming 
exceedingly advanced in price," they " have associated them- 
selves for the Purpose of giving correct American Editions of 
such elementary works as are in general use in our Schools, 
Academies, and Colleges ; and also for the publication of such 
other Books as may be interesting to the Community or con- 
ducive to the advancement of general knowledge." The sug- 
gestion came from Baltimore thru Boston. 

"Boston, April 5th, 1802. (Reed. Apr. 12) 
''Sir— 

" Can we not, by establishing a Company or Association of 
Booksellers in each great commercial city, under uniform regu- 
lations, to correspond regularly with each other, by Committee, 
or otherwise, promote the interest of the whole, and not only 
multiply the number, and increase the reputation of American 
Editions — but prevent the importation of all such Books as 
may be printed by each association agreeing that as soon as 
any work reprinted by any member, in a manner which they 
approve of, no one shall be at liberty to import the same work, 
unless in a larger and more costly form. In our opinion the 
best way to prevent the importation of Books will be to im- 
prove American Editions, by making them equal to the Euro- 
pean and this can easily be done by the booksellers each regula- 
ting their several branches of business. Let the Booksellers 
agree to employ none but regular bred reputable Printers to 
do their work at a fair price. Let the Book-Printers for the 
good of their art, determine to have their work well executed, 
and to employ none as Journey men but the few who have regu- 
larly acquired their business. And in order that the Binding 
may be equal to the Paper and Printing, let the Booksellers 
determine not to employ any but regularly bred Bookbinders 
and they none but regular Journeymen, except such as may 
already be in business. Some regulations of this nature among 
the three Branches would insure good Editions and there 



24 

would be a certain Sale for every Book of Merit, if the Book- 
seller was sure that as soon as he provided a handsome Edi- 
tion of all the valuable classic and School Books, in the 
different places, and by interchanging we should each have 
an assortment of valuable Books at the first cost. That meas- 
ures of this kind, if they can be carried into effect, would be 
of immense benefit to the several branches of the business, 
and tend powerfully to prevent the importation of Books, we 
are fully convinced — how far they are practicable we do not 
know — but we are fully of opinion that the most important 
part of such a system might be carried into complete effect 
here. 

" The preceding ideas were suggested by a circular letter 
from Baltimore wishing the Booksellers, etc to unite in a Peti- 
tion to Congress for additional duties on imported Books. 
Such additional duties, we are apprehensive, would be produc- 
tive of much public inconvenience, as it would be impossible to 
specify particular Books, and it would be a great while before 
all the books wanted could be printed here. Besides if we can 
only agree among ourselves, we can print and sell cheaper than 
they can be imported and sold. 

" We wish you would take the preceding into serious con- 
sideration, and present to the trade, in the principal cities, 
the outline of a plan for improving our own and preventing 
the importation of imported Books. By well directed efforts 
we think something of the kind may be brought about. — 
Thomas & Andrews." 

On April 26, they again write: "We will endeavor to pre- 
pare the outlines of a plan for an association of the trade and 
wish you not to fail of attending it, as you will be able to sug- 
gest many ideas that will not occur to us. . . ." 

I am unable to find the exact fate of the New York Asso- 
ciation of Booksellers, but it seems to have been very similar 
to that of the American Company. At any rate only ten years 
later Carey is again writing to a fellow publisher about another 
association of a very similar nature, except that the exchange 
feature and a limited membership are emphasized. In spite 
of their brief duration, the two organizations cannot be re- 
garded as unfruitful. The results of the former have already 
been glanced at: to the latter is undoubtedly due much of the 
impetus, to be noticed later, in school book publication and in 
the reproduction of the ancient classics. The feeling of coop- 



25 

eration and of mutual esteem that seemed to be growing up 
among publishers and dealers was to be almost completely 
destroyed at a later date by the advent of the popular novels 
of Scott and other British authors. 

The hand lists issued by the better firms^* were among the 
first steps towards the familiar twentieth century method of 
book distribution thru wide advertising. They were, however, 
largely intended for the trade. Yet as early as June 17, 1789, 
Carey pays to The Freeman's Journal a bill of £9/1/3 for 
inserting six advertisements, which no doubt were intended 
for the public at large. The neglect of advertising in general, 
and of newspaper advertising in particular, was a source of 
much discontent to editors. How great that neglect was may 
be judged from the comparatively infrequent entries in the 
following bill, which, it must be remembered, was the entire 
expense of the most aggressive publisher of the day. 

" Mr. Mathew Carey to Andw. Brown^' Dr. 

1794 drs. cts. 

January 7th To Advertising respecting Algerine Robbers 6 times i 50 

9th To do do do % squares 6 times i 87 J^ 

1 6th To do respecting The Malignant Fever 8 do i 90 

24th To do Collection of Maps 6 do i 50 

Mar I To do Love in a Village 3 do 90 

Up to August 6 the total was $84.64. It is noteworthy that 
in this bill the advertisement of Charlotte Temple is the third 
largest item. Possibly the immense vogue of that novel was 
due, in a measure, to persistent advertising. The New System 
of Modern Geography was advertised to the extent of $43.80 ; 
on Guthrie's Geography, however, only $3.93 was expended. 

This neglect was not caused by lack of results ; for Winifred 
Gates, whose commission sales were large, writing from 
Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1800 says that tho the last assort- 
ment was a very unsalable one she would " immediately adver- 
tise them, by giving the Title of each Book in the Paper, and 
if anything will sell them this will." 

Moreover the Port Folio magazine, which was established 
at Philadelphia in i8oi,soon found itself too freely utilized as a 

" See p. 19. 

" Very probably the advertisements were in Brown's Philadelphia Gazette. 



26 

gratuitous advertising medium. Evidently the editor thought 
himself abused, for in a very few years he was compelled to pro- 
test. He understood also the service of such a medium as his for 
bringing order out of the chaos that for a while followed the 
collapse of the two publishing associations, since later we find 
him telling the booksellers that if they would only send him 
notices of projected volumes there would be less confusion 
and fewer rival editions. Finally the book announcements 
and reviews became one of the most important features of the 
magazine. About 1819 the North American Review also be- 
came prominent in this way. 

Everyone knows that from its very beginning to the present 
day there has been a constant tendency to lessen the cost of 
literature to the consumer. It is not necessary here to enter 
into the progress of mechanical science to which this result is 
most largely due. The prices paid by the publisher, even a 
century ago, were quite different from those now prevailing. 
From the wealth of material at hand the following bills are 
taken as typical of the different charges of representative 
periods : 

Feby 5, 1787. Mr. Mathew Carey to Ch'. Cist 

To composing one sheet of his museum in small pica 27 X 48 £3/17/6 

printing loSo 1/17/6 S/iS/o 

45 quires of paper for the same i/i 7/6 

To 12 reams of demy paper 15% 9/0/0 

£20/9/6 

Philadelphia M'r. Mathew Carey to Daniel Broentigen 
1793 January 12 To full binding & filleting 50 Think Well on't £1/11/3 

do letter & filleting @ 75^, 3 

Setts American Museum 12 vols each @ ^ 4/16/0 
" " 17 To binding in Embossed paper 100 History of 

Charles Grandison @ ii** 1/13/11 

" " 21 To full bind, letter & filleting 50 Moral Sci- 

ence y$ 3/10/11 

Philadelphia 19th July 1794 
Mr Mathew Carey to James Hardie 

To reading J4 sheet Roderic Random i 6 

To do H Edwards on the Affections i 6 

To i^ days employed in correction the longitude etc. 126 

V "s~6 



27 

M. C. To William Barker, 

1795 
Jany. 29 To engraving a map of South Carolina" £30 11 3 

May 26 To do i copper plate (West part of United 

States 11725^) 42 5 7J^ 

Aug. 6 To do I do Likeness of M'uir & Palmer 

(plate incl.) i 03 

Mar. 12 To furnishing vallance with plate for N. C. 180 

On September 15, 1800, a letter from Mount Holly referring 
to a cap octavo Greek grammar says : 

" By putting the Notes in Brevier, the whole may be done 
page for page 14^ sheets, 19,000 ems in a sheet at 100 cents 
per 1000; which with the additional charge for Notes will 
bring the composition to 20 Dolls a sheet. — 14^ sheets at 20 
is 285 Dolls — The press work as usual." 

In October, 1808, one of the friends of Carey had a book 
which was about to be preceded by a rival edition and he called 
upon him for aid. His estimate is : 

"One third of the book is notes which should be done on 
Nonpareil, & the text in Long Primer. In that case it will 
make little more than 300 pages, if so much. The paper should 
be at least 4 dollars (Wieath's is 3:45). In that case the ex- 
pense of printing 3000 copies would be $1212 for 

1000 copies. for ^000 copies. 

120.00 paper at 4.00 360.00 paper 

192.00 Case Work, at 40 cents 192.00 case 

40.00 Press Work, at 4 cents 120.00 press 

180.00 Binding, at 18 cents 540.00 Binding 

1000 532.00 3000 1212.00 

53M for 1000 each 40 cents each for 3000 

In which estimate the composition is rated at 400 pages on 
account of notes, which will be about 10 percent too much & 
the notes have been counted as if done in Brevier, the text in 
Small Pica; . . ." 

"For Guthrie's Geography 4to. August 5, 1793, Carey had offered Jere- 
miah Belknap three dollars a page for an article on Massachusetts. Wash- 
ington, at Carey's request, lent him several hundred maps to be used in 
preparing this work. 



28 

Aug. 24, 1815 Mr. M. Carey To Wm Culloughton 
To Printing 1000 Garden of the Soul. 

Sm Pica 18 mo. 360 pages. 10 sheets, 
ms pages ms 
19X36 = 684X360 = 246,240 X 50 = $i23.oo 
20 forms = 8 X 10 tokens X 50 = 40.00 

Philad imo 22nd 1820 Mathew Carey & Son To WilHam 
Brown Dr. 
To printing five forms of Ivanhoe 11,500 m's and six 

tokens per form ($8-75 per form) $4375 

three forms of the Monestary 11,000 m's and ten tokens 

per form ($10.50 per form) 31-50 

Two pages that was canseled 5 tokens of press work on 
them 4.00 

$79-25 

It will be noticed that one of the above items is " a likeness 
of Muir & Palmer." Up to 1819 illustrations were extremely 
expensive, but in that year the first lithograph in America 
appeared in the Analetic Magazine for July, 1819.^^ The 
cheapening of illustration thru this method led in the next 
decade to the immense increase in illustrations so noticeable in 
the magazines, and without doubt appreciably aided in popu- 
larizing literature. 

Another process which tends greatly towards decreasing the 
price of books began to assume commercial importance about 
this time, that is stereotyping. The credit of being the first 
in America to use the process seems due to Dr. John Watts, 
who came to this country in 1804 or 1805. David Bruce 
further improved the art by inventing the planing mill. Elec- 
trotyping was not invented until the middle of the century. 
Up to the time of Watts and Bruce it was necessary to reset 
the type for a new edition or else allow it to stand at a great 
expense. In 1801 Carey adopted the latter method with a 
quarto edition of the Bible which he had prepared at a very 
great outlay, having paid a clergyman $1000 for additional 
references and having himself collated eighteen different texts. 

" A. H. Smyth, Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors, Phila- 
delphia, 1892, p. 180. See also the American Dictionary of Printing and 
Bookmaking, article on lithography; but compare Appendix II. "In 1802 
or thereabouts Carey had correspondence with Didot concerning the 
latter's use of a method of lithographing," says Mr. Henry C. Lea. 



CHAPTER III 

The Dependence upon Europe 

It may be possible for colonies to have a really vigorous and 
important literature, but historical facts seem to indicate that 
as long as they must look to a mother country for political 
guidance and commercial aid so long will they fail to attain 
the first rank intellectually. Of course the fact must be taken 
into consideration that colonies seldom enjoy the material 
equipments of life which, if not necessary for a great litera- 
ture, are at least very important factors in its development. 
American scholarship, for example, was retarded for half a 
century merely by the lack of a medium thru which it might 
express itself. Moreover, as long as one country accepts the 
customs and the intellectual attitude of another, there is little 
room for aught else than imitation ; and an imitative literature 
has never save in the case of the Romans been of the first 
rank. As long as America was loyal to England there were 
no great national questions to be discussed in the prose of a 
Thomas Paine or the verse of a Trumbull or a Freneau; a 
political separation was necessary in order that a Mathew 
Carey should lay the foundation of an American system of 
political economy. And when the great political upheaval of 
the American Revolution came with its complete political divi- 
sion, there was not by any means the same clear-cut intel- 
lectual cleavage, for only the growth of years could change 
the bias of thought of an entire people. What wonder, then, 
that before the Revolution, and for a few decades after it, the 
output of the American press consisted mainly of reprints of 
English authors. It is true that to disregard the mature litera- 
ture at hand would have been almost a crime against our intel- 
lectual development, but to favor the English at the expense 
of the American author was no less fatal. If it took John 

29 



30 

Winthrop's Journal a century and a half to get into print/ 
what chance had many a lesser author ? 

While the Revolution produced an immense number of 
political pamphlets and poems, especially towards its beginning 
and near its close, it tended on the whole to paralyze the pub- 
lishing industry. Practically every publishing center was, at 
one time or another, in the hands of the enemy, and suffered — 
as in the case of Germantown, which was of first importance 
as a paper manufacturing center — more or less material loss, 
not to speak of the energy turned into military channels. 
Isaiah Thomas for example was compelled to leave Boston for 
Worcester. But even here his business was interfered with, 
and we find him living for some time upon his farm. The 
supply of imported Bibles seems to have been completely 
stopped, and the Committee on Commerce ordered the impor- 
tation of 20,000 from Holland, Scotland or from any place 
where they could be obtained. The order was not filled, how- 
ever, for in 1782 Robert Aiken printed a large edition of the 
first English Bibles ever issued in America. This pious and 
laudable undertaking Congress approved in the same year 
because it was " subservient to the interest of religion, as well 
as an instance of the progress of the arts in this country."^ 
Importations from England were stopped, and for a consid- 
erable period America was thrown on her own resources. 

*John Winthrop's History of New England from 1630 to 1649, like 
the History of Bradford, was preserved in manuscript in the library of Old 
South Church, Boston, up to the Revolution. After quiet was restored two 
of the three volumes were found in the possession of the Connecticut branch 
of the Winthrops. These were as' previously noticed (page 8) edited by 
Noah Webster, in 1790. The third volume remained in the church and was 
not discovered until 181 6. While a new edition was being made, the 
second volume was burned, leaving only this careless edition of Webster's, 
(Pioneer Literature, edited by William P. Trent and Benjamin W. Wells, 
New York, 1903, p. 91.) Nor is this an isolated case: Bradford's History 
of Plymouth Plantation, Gookin's An Historical Account of the Doings and 
Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England (and perhaps his His- 
tory of New England) and a history of New England by William Hubbard 
passed thru vicissitudes that read like the adventures of a rare mediaeval 
manuscript. 

^John Bach McMaster, A History of the People of the United States, 
New York, 1900, Vol. V, p. 283. 



31 

After the Revolution recovery was comparatively rapid. 
The demand for books of information was immediate and that 
for general reading shows a steady increase. Before 1790 
there had been issued from Philadelphia presses the first Amer- 
ican editions of Blackstone's Commentaries, an abridgment of 
The Lives of the British Poets, Leland's Ireland, Robertson's 
Scotland, and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Between 
1790 and 1800 appeared Paley's Moral Philosophy, Russell's 
Modern Europe, Robertson's Histories, Aristotle's Ethics and 
Politics, Johnson's Dictionary ;^ and also considerably before 
1790, that edition of Rasselas which so soothed Dr. Johnson's 
ruffled temper. Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Richard- 
son, Shenstone, Akenside, Defoe, and Goldsmith were popular 
before the Revolution, but with the advent of Mrs. Radcliffe 
and similar writers their popularity suffered a striking decline 
in favor of a host of Abbeys, Romances and Mysteries. 
Although a dealer at Raleigh, North Carolina, can write in 
1800 that " nothing sells better here than modern law, an order 
for a Parcel of which I have just sent thro' Charleston to 
London," yet only a year later, after ordering a rather large 
list of substantial books she adds : " Mr. Carey will be so oblig- 
ing as to send as many of the Novels as he can procure, it will 
be mutually our interest to keep a good collection, as the good 
folks here love light reading." The list* is disconcerting to 
those persons who seem to believe that our forefathers, wiser 
than ourselves, never frittered away their time over idle sen- 
sationalism. But tho this is not an exceptional list, for it 
may be paralleled in page after page of many account books, it 
must be remembered that there was another side to the ques- 
tion doubtless more important then than it is at the present 
day: if Carey had maintained a larger correspondence with 
Puritan New England there might have been a few more 
persons to write significantly as did his printer and paper maker 
at Easton, Pennsylvania, on March 13, 1800, " if you can 

' Cf. McMaster, Vol. V, pp. 282-3. See also, in part, Charles R. Hilde- 
burn, Issues of the Press in Pennsylvania, 1685-1784, Philadelphia, 1887, 
Vol. II. 

* See Appendix III. 



32 

think of printing a Novel." Nevertheless even in New Eng- 
land Royall Tyler, in the preface to his Algerine Captive, 
notices in 1797 that in the last seven years " some dreary some- 
body's day of Doom "° and other works of its class had been 
replaced by such ''light reading" as they demanded in North 
Carolina. On the whole Tyler thinks the change a good one ; 
but he regrets that the new literature was " not of our own 
manufacture," and that it did not mirror American life, but 
presented a picture of European institutions and of moral atti- 
tudes totally at variance with our own. Our political depend- 
ence had passed away : our literary and intellectual dependence, 
tho changing in its aspect, was yet a controlling force. 

But to one not inconsiderable element of our population 
dependence upon their mother land was quickly lost. The 
Germans, the French, and the Dutch were soon forced, thru 
linguistic and commercial necessities, to forget that they had 
another language and another civilization. The Germans had 
no small part in the first steps of American publishing. To 
them we owe the first paper mills. The first religious maga- 
zine in America was Sauer's Geistliches Magazine, 1764, for 
which Sauer himself cast the first type made in America.* In 
1798 appeared the Philadelphisches Magazin fur die Deutschen 
in America^ Yet both periodicals were shortlived, and even 
as early as 1787 a firm which had "just set up a German & 
English Printing Office, Stationary & Bookstore," at Lancaster 
and were about to publish a newspaper were disappointed to 
find more English readers than German for they " sold three 
English books to one in German." And this too of all the 
regions in America was at this time the most thickly settled 
by Germans. It must be added that the importation of books 
in foreign languages was yet inconsiderable. To the French 
and the Dutch is traceable much less influence, tho works 
were printed in the language of each. Every person not of 
British descent who learned our speech was a clear gain in the 
struggle against literary subordination which was coming ; for 

^ Lillie Deming Loshe, The Early American Novel, New York, 1907, p. i. 
® Smyth, p. 19. 
^ Ibid, p. 84. 



33 

such a person was free from the powerful influence of in- 
herited English traditions and sympathies, and unawed by 
British criticism and condescension. Those who, like Carey 
himself, had sought America as an asylum from oppression 
were equally disinclined to accept dictation from across the 
ocean. Still less would the German, the French, the Dutch, or 
the Irish be inclined to send their children to England for their 
education, as was so often done by parents of direct British 
descent. 

The uneducated reader is usually uncritical, enjoying alike, 
without inquiry into country or school, his Charlotte Temple or 
his Mysteries of Udolpho. But side by side with such readers 
there was growing up a race of scholars in America who were 
critical of each other and who were to be criticized by the 
learned men of Europe with whom they aspired to compete. 
Their lot was indeed hard. A Franklin might, thru sheer 
genius and aided by residence abroad, get a hearing; but diffi- 
cult enough was the lot of the man of mere talent. If in 191 1 
American scholarship is yet lightly regarded in some quarters 
of Europe, what must have been the attitude a century and a 
quarter ago, when perhaps the most powerful of its countries 
had reached the point of sullen enmity? Practical equipment 
was sadly lacking,® but more serious still was the absence of a 
medium thru which an author could approach the learned 
public. As might be expected from the conservative nature 
of scholarship, scholarly publications lagged hopelessly behind 
literary. It must be observed, however, that it was largely the 
publications of learned societies and the occasional scholarly 
paper that suffered. Noah Webster published a popular dic- 
tionary; and the colossal Ornithology of Alexander Wilson was 
issued at Philadelphia as strictly an American work (tho doubt- 
less the Scotch claimed full credit), on "American paper 
made of American rags " ; but even towards this class of 
scholarly production, the letter quoted elsewhere^ reflects the 
general attitude. 

"Even as late as 1822 the "Complete Woman in Wax" ordered by the 
University of Transylvania (Lexington, Ky.) had to be made by " a cele- 
brated artist at Florence " ! 

• Pp. 20-21. 
4 



34 

The adverse conditions confronting American scholarship as 
late as 1824 are clearly illustrated in a circular by Carey To 
the Members of the American Philosophical Society, Philadel- 
phia, April 14, 1824. The proceedings of this society, which 
included among its members Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, 
Adams, Rush, and others, and might reasonably be supposed to 
be one of the most progressive in America, were published in 
quarto form. Owing to the size of the volumes they were 
issued at very long intervals — nine in sixty-one years. " Under 
such circumstances," writes Carey, who was a member, " it 
is not wonderful so few communications are made to the 
society — the wonder is, that any authors are to be found to 
submit to such delays. It is no exaggeration to say, that there 
is more temptation to an American author to send his com- 
munications to London, Dublin, Edinburgh (and some mem- 
bers of the society have actually pursued this plan) or even to 
Stockholm, Petersburg, or Calcutta, than to the American 
Philosophical Society. In six months he might have a copy 
of his essay from any one of the three first places — in twelve 
from the fourth or fifth — and in eighteen from Calcutta ! Four 
years is a tolerably fair average for the appearance of a com- 
munication in our transactions." 

A few entries from Volume VII, published in February, 
1818, are interesting. 

No. 2 read Nov. 14, 1810 No. 7 read Oct. 1813 

No. 5 read Mar. 15, 181 1 No. 8 read Nov. 1809 

No. 6 read Feb. 1812 No. 29 read July 1795 

Volume VI was published July i, 1809. "This" (scarcity of 
publications) " could not have arisen from the dearth of talents 
considering the number of eminent men who have flourished 
here during the existence of the society and also, that for a 
considerable time there was scarcely any similar society in the 
country." 

As a practical publisher and bookseller Carey urges upon the 
society the immense advantage of publishing their transactions 
in octavo form : they will appear much more often, be more 
easy to handle, and more generally bought. " It is to be re- 
gretted that the mania for copying European examples led to 



35 

publication in quarto form, so ill suited to the circumstances of 
this country." 

This, it may be remarked in passing, was not the only ven- 
ture of Carey into the scholarly world. In 1810 he had at- 
tempted to defend Sterne from the charge of plagiarism, and 
here as in all his writings he exhibits admirable common sense. 
Whether we agree with him or not — and many critics have 
taken the other side — he shows to what lengths the source- 
hunter can sometimes go. The following year he attempted 
the not very profitable task of pointing out the defects in 
Hamlet, especially the inconsistencies of Hamlet's character. 
Yet the timid and slavish mind might be none the worse for 
coming into contact with this honest opinion of a fearless, 
robust intellect. In 1826 he advocated the establishment of a 
college in Philadelphia in which English literature, the sciences, 
and the liberal arts could be taught, and for admission to which 
no Latin or Greek need be ofifered.^^ Mechanical drawings 
and other sciences were especially emphasized in the plan. 

To add to the troubles of the scholar, there was no adequate 
importation law to protect him from rival editions if he should 
attempt to edit a Greek or Latin classic, compile a dictionary, 
or write a grammar. The evident need of such a law induced 
M. Carey & Sons to take up the matter. 

"J. D. Ingram Esq. Jan. 8, 1823. 

"We take the liberty to address you on the subject of the 
Bill reported by the Committee of Ways & Means on the 
importation of Books — believing that a part of it has been 
framed without due consideration of an important interest 
which will be materially affected by it. 

" The General principle of the Bill making the duty a spe- 
cific one meets our warm approbation, and is what we had 
wished for several years past to be done, but that part which 
relates to the importation of Books in other Languages does 
not. The Committee by whom that bill was reported was 
probably not aware of the extent to which the Manufacture 
of Books in the dead Languages has been, and is likely to be 
carried, and for the same reason which dictates the necessity 
for such provision for a home supply of Books in English in 

^° Some time before, Dr. Rush had proposed to abolish the study of the 
classics. 



36 

common use, must apply to the case of those in Latin & 
Greek. To show you how far that department of the business 
has already gone, we state that we have stereotyped Virgil 
Delphini & Horace Delphini at an expense of nearly $6000. 
Mr. Warner of this place had Ainsworth's Lat. Diet, stereo- 
typed for which he paid $4500. Ovid & Caesar Delphini have 
been stereotyped in New York. Graeca Minora is now stereo- 
typing there for a house in Boston. Hutchinson's Xenophon is 
doing there for us. In these seven books there has been in- 
vested a capital of about $20,ocx). Cicero in 21 Vols, and Taci- 
tus 3 Vols, have been printed at great expense in Boston. 
Numerous other Classical Works are constantly printing here, 
in N. York, Boston, Andover etc. All the Books used in 
Academies & Schools and nearly all those used in Colledges 
have been reprinted in this Country. 

" The efifect of the Clause referred to in the Bill now re- 
ported must be to lessen very much the manufacture of these 
books as it is impossible without some duty to compete with 
foreigners. In Europe the fondness for Classical Literature 
& the demand for the books are very great. In this country 
it is very small and can only increase by the gradual republica- 
tion of Classical Books. We hazard nothing in saying that 
the demand for all books^^ of every description after republi- 
cation in this country is 20 times greater than when we are 
dependent upon Europe for our supplies.^^ In the one case, 
the Publishers & all the booksellers become interested in the 
disposal of the work, as the one has his edition to sell and 
naturally endeavors to interest the Trade at large. In the 
other case the importing Bookseller receives a few Copies and 
it is to him a matter of comparatively small importance when 
they are sold. 

" We believe the provisions for the duty being 21 cents per 
lb. on all Books without exception when imported in sheets 
or in boards would materially lessen the present rate upon 
books generally and could hardly fail to give satisfaction gen- 
erally. The Books now generally imported, are in the highest 

" " Extraordinary as this assertion may appear to you, you will find it 
correct by making enquiry of any person acquainted with the book-selling 
Business in the two departments of Importation & Publication." 

" Elsewhere Carey makes the assertion that tho he imported probably 
as many books as any other dealer in America they never formed more than 
Ye of his trade. One order alone, from Dublin, February 26, 1795, had 
amounted to £548/0/10. The next year we find him offering to salesmen 
and correspondents a commission of 12}^% on American works and 8J^% 
on European. This doubtless had something to do with the sales. 



37 

departments of Science, and those connected with the Fine 
Arts, and as their weight is generally small in proportion to 
their cost, they wd be admitted at a very moderate duty 
while those we can manufacture to an extent fully equal to 
the demands, as Bibles, School Books, Novels, etc will be in 
a great degree shut out . . ." 

The effect upon the classical scholar of a total lack of pro- 
tection for any scholarly work in the ancient classics was of 
course hardly less disastrous than it was to the publishing 
interests which so vigorously protest in this letter. And when 
we consider the bearing of the third paragraph we must in 
addition conclude that the spread of classical knowledge 
among those not professedly scholars was greatly retarded. 

The letter also shows that by 1823 America had the ma- 
terial equipment at hand to supply her own wants. As indi- 
cated by the letter^^ of Thomas & Andrews, the publishers 
thought themselves able to cope with the situation as early as 
1802, provided there was complete cooperation; and by 1823 
we find individual firms strong enough to attempt it alone. 
We have already noticed that in 1792 Carey had written that 
a supply of imported English books was necessary to his busi- 
ness. During the beginnings of the book trade the publishers 
as well as the dealers had sought to restrict the duty on books 
because they were not yet capable of furnishing an adequate 
supply of domestic manufacture. Soon however they began 
to change their policy, and by 1820, when the agricultural and 
manufacturing interests were clashing over a protective tariff, 
they were loud in their demands of protection. One of the 
interests to suffer most heavily was that of Bible manufactur- 
ing. The English book trade at this period was greatly 
depressed.^* The dealers sent hawkers to America, who can- 
vassed the entire country in the special interest of the Bible 
manufacturers, selling between 700,000 and 800,000 Bibles to 
subscribers. Even the inadequate duty was largely avoided : 
for when books were published in more than one volume they 

" See pp. 23-24. 

"Other branches of knowledge suffered also. In 1801 a North Carolina 
dealer sends a large order for law books, asking for the " Irish edition as 
they will be the cheapest." 



38 

were sent to different ports and, as defective, passed almost 
duty free.^^ Jefferson, the advocate of non-protection, had 
taken the matter up in 182 1, as in a letter^® to Madison he urges 
the repeal of all duty on books and points out that the north- 
ern educational institutions had united for its repeal. To 
Mathew Carey more than to any one man in America was it 
due that adequate legislation was finally secured. The manu- 
facturing industries, most of all, were suffering a severe re- 
striction and in many cases a total cessation of their activities, 
while agriculture was in a very bad way. There were various 
theories then prevalent to account for this condition of ex- 
treme depression, a depression which wrought greater injury 
to Carey's native manufacturing city, Philadelphia, than per- 
haps to any other in the country. It was believed by some 
that it was but the natural result of a transition from a state 
of war, with its widespread employment of men, to a state of 
peace, in which large numbers of the temporarily unemployed 
were thrown upon the country. A second reason popularly 
advanced was the incorporation, in Pennsylvania, of forty-six 
banks, with a capital greatly in excess of their needs. 

Carey had read very little and written nothing upon political 
economy. He had, however, as early as 18 16 helped to organ- 
ize a society, consisting of only ten members, entitled the 
Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry. 
The leadership of this society falling naturally upon Carey, he 
began to make a deep study of the subject, and to lay the foun- 
dation of an American protective system, the literature of which, 
so effectively contributed to by himself, was increased and en- 
forced by his son, Henry Charles Carey (1793-1879), one of 
the greatest political economists America has ever produced. 
Commerce at this period was abundantly protected, as anyone 
at all conversant with our shipping industry up to the middle of 
the nineteenth century well knows. Agriculture, because of the 
lack of an European surplus, was not in need of any aid, nor 
was Carey himself personally benefited by any modification 

'^ McMaster, Vol. IV, p. 513. 

^^ Paul Lester Ford, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, New York and 
London, 1899, Vol. X, p. 67. 



39 

of the tariff, for "by the importation of books I had never 
experienced the least inconvenience," he writes. Yet he 
entered into the defense of the embarrassed manufacturers 
with all his characteristic ardor. He took infinite pains to 
master the subject to the neglect of his business interests. 
Within the first twelve months of his activities he expended 
above six hundred dollars in journeys and in printing. 

The most popular writer upon political economy at this 
period, and its accepted authority, was Adam Smith. Carey 
read Smith with great care, and it is characteristic of the man 
that he did not hesitate to attack his theories in spite of their 
years of intrenched authority. He found, he says, a " gross 
contradiction on a most vital point," which cast doubt upon 
the main thesis of Smith's system. This contradiction hinged 
upon the theory of "collateral branches of industry" which 
especially excited the animosity of Carey. He undertook in 
two essays to prove that when a great manufactory was forced 
to close, not only was the capital decreased or lost, but that 
the laborers could not and did not find employment in agricul- 
ture, etc., or even in kindred branches of manufacture, — that 
there were no " collateral branches of industry " capable of 
absorbing the economic shock when large numbers of manu- 
facturing laborers, skilled in one line only, were thrown out 
of employment. 

When Carey began to write upon political economy, he had 
no intention of going beyond these two essays, but they were 
received so favorably and so widely copied by newspapers in 
the East and North that he was encouraged to continue and 
he wrote nine more which had an equal circulation. The 
society behind Carey gave him fairly effective aid at this 
period by publishing and circulating his essays in pamphlets 
of from four to eight pages, in editions that ran as high as 
fifteen hundred. This extensive circulation, thought Carey, 
had an important effect in converting entire sections of the 
country to protection, where protection had scarcely a friend 
before. The society also published the series of eleven essays, 
together with two by another member. Dr. Samuel Jackson, 
in a book of two hundred and eighty pages. The career of the 
Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry 



40 

was not, however, a very long one. After it had been in 
existence for about a year, the Agricultural Society of Freder- 
icksburg published a memorial to congress containing some 
rather severe strictures upon what they termed the attempt 
of the manufacturing interests to obtain an unjust monopoly. 
In reply to this Carey wrote and published, in March, 1820, 
a pamphlet of one hundred and fourteen pages.^^ It was 
issued under his own name alone, for he had used stronger 
language in answer to what he considered the heresy of the 
memorial of the Agricultural Society than he thought the 
Philadelphia Society might care to have published in its name. 
He thought, however, that it should be willing to bear its 
legitimate share of the publishing expense of eighty dollars. 
The society refused to contribute on the ground that the pam- 
phlet had not been published in its name. Carey withdrew, 
disgusted at its meanness, and it soon died for want of a 
resolute and active leader such as it had just lost. Carey now 
received practically no support, for in New York the cause 
of the protective tariff after agitation for about a year had 
ceased, temporarily at least, to be regarded as a paramount 
issue. In Boston and in Baltimore the friends of the tariff 
were not active. Yet Carey remained aggressively in the field 
and continued to write and publish on the subject with extra- 
ordinary rapidity. The address and the articles afterwards 
published as Essays on Political Economy^^ were, for instance, 
produced (except the preface of ten pages) between March 27, 
1819, and November 21, 1821. And up to 1832, when by the 
victory of nullification the principles of the protective tariff 
suffered such a severe blow that for a time it seemed hopeless 
to advocate them, he continued to write and to publish for the 
cause with unflagging industry and ardor. 

Not only did Carey receive little help at this period outside 

" These essays by Carey and others of his of a similar character were 
afterwards collected by him under the title of Essays on Political Economy ; 
Or The Most Certain Means of Promoting the Wealth, Power, Resources, 
and Happiness of Nations; Applied particularly to the United States. 
Philadelphia, 1822, 8vo, 552 pp. Pages 169 to 187 were written by Dr. 
Samuel Jackson. 

" See note above. 



41 

of congress, where Clay was a stalwart protectionist, but he 
even met active opposition. The same attitude that was 
shown towards literature of British origin was manifested 
towards articles manufactured in the mother country. They 
were looked upon as better than those of domestic make, as 
undoubtedly they were at first; and the importers who had 
early built up a business were interested in perpetuating this 
opinion. The public, then, needed to be enlightened in the 
matter of the respective merits of American and British manu- 
factures ; and in this education of the people in things material 
as well as in things intellectual, Carey played an important 
part. Against his views and teachings were opposed such men 
as Governor Wright of Maryland and the redoubtable John 
Randolph of Roanoke, who is said to have made a solemn vow 
that he would never wear, nor allow anyone connected with 
him to wear, any article manufactured in America. 

Just how hopelessly ignorant of and prejudiced against the 
manufacturers the larger part of the public was at the period 
immediately after the War of 1812 is shown by the tabulation 
of the objections against domestic manufactures which Carey 
gives : 

" I. The demoralizing and debasing effects of manufactur- 
ing establishments. 

" II. Their injurious interference with commerce. 

" III. The high rate of wages in the United States. 

" IV. The great extent of our vacant lands, which ought to 
be settled previously to the erection of manufacturing estab- 
lishments on a large scale. 

" V. The extortions practised and the extravagant prices 
charged by manufacturers during the war. 

" VI. The loss of revenue that would arise from protecting 
or prohibitory duties. 

" VII. The danger of encouraging smuggling by high 
duties."^^ 

These charges he takes up and refutes one by one. The 
opposition of the agricultural states of the South was, of 
course, the most potent reason why the protective system en- 
countered so many reverses. Carey at all times tried to recon- 

^^ Essays on Political Economy, Philadelphia, 1822, p. 62. 



42 

cile the agricultural and the manufacturing interests and to 
show how they were mutually dependent. To the fourth 
objection, therefore, he, in this particular essay as well as in 
others, devotes considerable space. He had formulated for 
himself, near the beginning of his career, a set of eleven 
political maxims, the ninth of which reads '' the interests of 
agriculture and commerce are so inseparably connected, that 
any serious injury suffered by one of them must materially 
affect the other."^^ This sounds trite enough to us, but we 
are wise in our mass of accumulated experiences, and the 
opinions of 1819 are yet alive. 

To prove and enforce his maxim Carey wrote and pub- 
lished in March, 1820, what he called The New Olive Branch: 
Or, An Attempt to Establish an Identity of Interest between 
Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce; and to Prove, 
that a large Portion of the Manufacturing Industry of this 
Nation has been Sacrificed to Commerce; and that Commerce 
has Suffered by this Policy nearly as much as Manufactures. 
The entire pamphlet of one hundred and thirty octavo pages 
(second edition, Philadelphia, 1821) is a strong plea, as the 
descriptive title indicates, for a union of interests between 
jarring classes; for perhaps Carey saw, even thus early, the 
great danger that threatened the Union should the animosities 
continue unabated — a danger which actually came with the 
Nullification crisis of 1832. In this crisis, too, if I may anti- 
cipate for a moment, Carey did no inconsiderable service as a 
peacemaker. 

The entire body of Carey's writings upon political economy 
could probably not now be collected, for many of them were 
published as extremely thin and perishable pamphlets, and 
many others were written under an assumed name and were 
not all collected or acknowledged. But those that survive — 
probably the great majority — display such prodigious industry 
and productiveness as to give a feeling of discomfort to the 
average person. He must also come away from their perusal 
with a feeling of admiration for the high motives which 
prompted Carey to devote such a large part of his time and 

^ Ibid., p. 26, 



43 

energy to a cause in which he had only a humanitarian and a 
patriotic interest. Few men, even when personally interested, 
ever show so much devotion to a losing cause thru such a long 
period of years. The reader must be impressed, too, by the 
candor and the fairmindedness of the man. At times he does 
indeed use language more impassioned than is supposed usu- 
ally to comport with such an abstruse and impersonal science 
as political economy, but it is always directed towards showing 
the unfortunate condition of some class or community rather 
than towards a personal denunciation of any particular indi- 
vidual or interest. This turn of mind it was which particularly 
fitted Carey for the role of peacemaker. The " olive branch," 
if we judge by the number of times the expression occurs in 
the titles of his books, was his favorite emblem. 

If the reader is at first struck by the self-assurance of Carey 
in taking up and writing upon such a difficult subject as politi- 
cal economy before he had any training in that science, he 
must acknowledge that he acquired a fair degree of mastery 
in a surprisingly short time. The abundant references to the 
authorities and to the original sources of his time show how 
carefully and how widely he had read. A favorable impres- 
sion is also created by the frankness with which he acknowl- 
edges his liability to err. This trait the following passage well 
illustrates : 

" I throw myself upon the indulgence of a public, a sincere 
desire to promote whose welfare and happiness has given birth 
to this work, which is published with a full conviction of its 
manifold imperfections. Let me be permitted to add, in the 
words of the great Chaptal — ' I have neglected nothing to 
procure correct information. I do not, however, pretend to 
publish a perfect work. All that I can pledge myself for, is, 
that it emanates from honest intentions.' Such is the language 
of the Minister of the Interior of France, respecting his 
admirable work on ' French Industry.' If, with the immense 
advantages he possessed through his official station, and his 
unlimited command of the national statistics — he found it 
necessary to propitiate public opinion for the indulgence of his 
errors — how incomparably more necessary is such propitiation 
for this work, labouring as I have done, under almost every 
kind of disadvantage to which a writer is liable. Let me ob- 
serve, as an additional reason for critical indulgence, that 



44 

before I began to write the addresses of the Philadelphia 
Society for the Promotion of National Industry in 1819, I 
had never devoted three days to the study of political eco- 
nomy."^^ 

If Carey was by nature a wielder of the olive branch, he 
had every need of his talent before the end of his career. The 
reader will recall that in 1824 the continued agitation for a 
protective tariff, not one for revenue only, bore fruit in a bill 
whose essential effect was to exclude from the American 
market such foreign goods as competed with those of domestic 
manufacture. A convention, of which Carey was a member, 
met at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1827 to discuss a still 
further increase in the duties on certain articles. The attend- 
ance from the slave states was noticeably small. Then came 
the famous '* Tariff of 1828," which went further than any 
other in prohibitive duties, especially on woollen and cotton 
fabrics. The southern planters were alarmed lest Great 
Britain, by adopting retaliatory measures, should injure the 
exportation of cotton. As a result came the critical period of 
Nullification. 

Carey, true to his character as peacemaker, did all in his 
power to relieve the tense strain which threatened civil war. 
In a series of ten letters addressed to Henry Clay and entitled 
Prospects on the Rubicon. Letters on the prevailing excite- 
ment in South Carolina. On the means employed to produce it. 
On the causes that led to the depreciation of the great staple of 
the state. And on the misconceptions of the effect of the tariff 
(Philadelphia, Feb., 1832), he endeavored to point out the lack 
of ground for the uncompromising attitude of South Carolina. 
A Solemn Warning on the Banks of the Rubicon followed in 
July of the same year. But the Nullifiers refused to take 
warning, and in the same month Carey published The Crisis."^ 

In a meeting held at Charleston in 1832 Mr. Adams' bill 
and that of the secretary of the treasury had both been repudi- 
ated, '* because they retain the principle of imposing taxes for 

^ Essays on Political Economy, p. ix. 

^ The Crisis, An Appeal to the good sense of the nation, against the spirit 
of resistance and dissolution of the Union. Philadelphia, 1832. 



45 

the purpose of protection, which is a power not granted to the 
Constitution, and, whilst it is maintained, will continue to en- 
danger our rights." Taking this as a text Carey proceeds to 
appeal for the integrity of the federal government and the 
submission of the states to it. He points out the two alterna- 
tives if the southern states should persist in this attitude — 
civil war to maintain the Union or passive submission and dis- 
integration. 

"The complaints of South Carolina," he writes, "embrace 
four objects: the distress said to be consequent on the pro- 
tective system; the unconstitutionality of that system; internal 
improvements; and the colonization society."^^ Carey limits 
himself to the first two. 

The long years of advocacy of a doctrine so bitterly re- 
pudiated by many had not been without their sting to Carey, 
and the dislike of a body of his fellow citizens was so bitter 
to him that it finally drew forth this cry: 

" I have laboured in this great cause for above thirteen 
years — expended above 4000 dollars on it, for paper, printing, 
journeys, books, postage, etc., although I have never had any 
personal interest in it — neglected my business while I was in 
trade^* — lost some of my best friends and customers — gave up 
my enjoyments — excited deadly hostility — was subject to abuse 
in and out of Congress, and in newspapers, pamphlets and 
stump speeches — and burned in effigy in Columbia. So far, 
nevertheless, as regards the public interest, I do not regret 
those sacrifices; on the contrary I glory in them. But as re- 
gards my personal feelings, I take heaven to witness, I have 
reason to curse the hour when I engaged in the cause. . . . 

"... From the great quantity I write, it is supposed that 
I take a pleasure in writing. This is a great error. Writing 
is to me irksome, requiring an eifort which is painful. "^^ 

The Crisis concludes with a rather remarkable epitaph, to be 
used if the nullifier should secede, one of the spectacular meth- 
ods by which Carey often gained the attention of a wide circle 
of indifferent or hostile readers. The capitalization is largely 
omitted, and the spacing is not reproduced. 

^Ibid., p. 4. 

"* The large number of letters on political subjects among the corres- 
pondence bears ample witness to this. 
^ The Crisis, p. 20. 



46 

" Epitaph " 

" Here, to the ineffable joy of the Despots, and Friends of 
Despotism, throughout the world, and the universal distress 
and mortification of the friends of human liberty and happiness, 
lie the shattered remains of the noblest fabric of Government, 
ever devised by man, the Constitution of the United States. 
The fatal result of its dissolution was chiefly produced, by 
the unceasing efforts of some of the most highly gifted men 
in the U. S, whose labours, for a series of years had this 
sinister tendency, by the most exaggerated statements of the 
distress and suffering of South Carolina, (unjustly ascribed 
to the tariffs of duties on imports) which, whatever they were, 
arose from the blighting, blasting, withering effects of Slavery; 
together with the depreciation of the great Staple of the State, 
the inevitable consequence of over production : caused, in a 
great degree, by the depression of the Manufactures of the 
country, in 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820 & 1821, for want of 
the protection of the government, withheld by the miserable 
tariff of 1816. Here, then, at length, is the problem solved, 
whether man be fit for self government : and, alas ! determined 
in the negative. For no country ever had, and it is utterly 
improbable any country will have, equal advantages with those 
we enjoy." 

He further contributed to the literature concerning Nulli- 
fication an Essay on the Dissolution of the Union, written in 
September, 1832, and signed Hamilton. The pamphlet is an 
eloquent appeal to the people of the South to preserve the 
Union, to make it known to all nations that a government by 
the people was not a thing of a season but an enduring reality, 
a light to the oppressed and a rebuke to the tyrannies of the 
earth. 

At least three things must become evident to the person 
who reads the essays of Carey upon political economy, and 
such closely allied subjects as have just been sketched. He 
must be impressed with the remarkable energy and industry 
of the man. His grasp of his subject before he had been writ- 
ing any length of time will be disputed by few, and the 
patriotism and philanthropy that inspired him to such heroic 
efforts must inevitably excite strong feelings of admiration. 
" His energy, his high-mindedness, and his indomitable per- 
severance, will force themselves upon the most casual ob- 



47 

server," wrote^® Poe, and to no part of Carey's life does this 
better apply than to the period from 1819 to 1832. 

To return to the somewhat more narrow issues of political 
economy as applied to books alone, the importation of books 
in foreign languages was seemingly never very large. There 
was a relatively small number of immigrants. Their educa- 
tion was, comparatively speaking, probably greater than is 
that of the immigrants of the present day. The absence of 
national prejudice on the part of the Americans permitted 
free inter-marriage among the whites. These conditions com- 
bined prevented those who sought new homes in America 
from forming communities so large and so conservative that 
they were still inclined to feel themselves almost a part of 
their mother country, demanding its literature and making no 
great effort to acquire a mastery of the language of the country 
which supported them. Such phenomena are unfortunately 
becoming visible today. French was not read so much as at 
present. Its acquisition was probably even a greater mark of 
culture, but it was not needed, as it is now, by the host of tour- 
ists; and few schools taught it. French immigration was 
never great; and that brilliant little colony at Philadelphia, 
of which King Joseph was the head, was merely an episode. 
Tho there are many letters from France in the Carey corre- 
spondence — especially during the French Revolution and im- 
mediately after-^ — very seldom are orders for French books to 
be found. Indeed more American books are ordered by the 
French than vice versa. It is not probable that some other 
dealer was supplying the country. There is no evidence that 
they were imported at Boston in appreciable quantities. In 
1801 we find Hugh Gaine, the best known and most extensive 
dealer in New York, ordering from Carey himself, French 
books not of a technical or special character, but such as 
would undoubtedly be classed as "light reading" in North 
Carolina. If such books could not be obtained nearer than 
Philadelphia the amount of French literature bought and sold 
in New York must have been extremely small. 

^The Southern Literary Messenger, Richmond, 1836, p. 203. 
" These letters are generally attempts to get information about some lost 
friend or relative — a gruesome sidelight upon that great upheaval. 



48 

The case was very similar with German importations. The 
number of colonists was greater; and tho mere numbers 
enabled them sometimes to retain their identity, as in the case 
of the Pennsylvania Dutch, yet, on the whole, they were more 
quickly adapted to their surroundings than the French. If 
there was no period of a Grand Monarque for them, the 
former citizens of obscure little principalities, in many cases, 
to look back to with a pride of race that militated strongly 
against a loss of identity, still less was there a literature such 
as France possessed for them to draw upon ; for the crowning 
achievement of German literature was yet being dreamt of at 
Weimar. Outside of the German born there was practically 
no one at the end of the eighteenth century for whom books 
should be imported. German was not taught in our schools,^^ 
and the knowledge of the language — witness the wretched 
translations of Schiller and Kotzebue — was small indeed. The 
interest of Charles Brockden Brown in German literature must 
be pointed out as something remarkable. In fact, as we shall 
see in another chapter, the balance of trade, if not in our favor, 
was at least equal. The Dutch were soon assimilated; and 
when in 1822 we find arrangements being made for a repre- 
sentative of M. Carey & Sons at Gibraltar we may be sure 
from other evidence that the Spanish importations are intended 
for the South American market. The dependence upon 
Europe then, for all but those of English descent, was a con- 
dition very soon surmounted. 

^ Frederick H. Wilkens, Early Influence of German Literature in 
America, New York (no date), Reprint No. i, Americana Germanica, Vol. 
Ill, No. 2, p. 60. Blaettermann, who became professor of modem lan- 
guages at the University of Virginia in 1825, seems to have given instruction 
in German, but the first regular instructor was appointed by Harvard, in 
1826. Ticknor says that in 181 3 he could not find a German dictionary in 
Boston, but had to borrow one from New Hampshire. {Life, Letters, and 
Journals of Geo. Ticknor, Boston, 1877, Vol. i, p. 11.) Compare Harold 
Clark Goddard's Studies in New England Transcendentalism, New York, 
1908, pp. 202-206. (Appendix, " German Literature in New England in the 
Early Part of the Nineteenth Century.") 



CHAPTER IV 

The Growing Feeling of Nationalism and the Rise of 
AN American Literature 

Just as the Normans could not long endure political separa- 
tion from France without becoming Englishmen, with a de- 
sire to build up a native literature and social and political 
institutions which should in some measure be their own, so 
the Americans soon began to feel that with a new government 
and new social aims they should have a new literature — one 
that no longer was a mere reflection of a more brilliant one 
across the ocean : A Conquest of Louisburg must be replaced 
by an Eutaw Springs, tho the change is not by any means so 
rapid as the juxtaposition of these two titles indicates. The 
quotation from I^oyall Tyler in the last chapter shows that in 
1797 there was already a strong feeling among certain men 
that a national literature was necessary. Not every one how- 
ever was of this opinion. Joseph Dennie, the gifted editor of 
Philadelphia's most brilliant magazine. The Port Folio, was, 
for instance, strongly drawn towards the mother country and 
resisted all American innovations as long as possible. Yet 
six months after his death, in 1812, we find his successor ad- 
vising another editor to this effect : " We know that there has 
been a time, when, merelysAo have been the growth of trans- 
atlantic regions, constituteo^ anjong the people of the United 
States, an exalted recommen(^1:ion, both to persons and opin- 
ions. Fortunately, however, for the dignity and self-respect 
of our country, that humiliating period is passing away. Per- 
haps it may be said to have already expired. We are assum- 
ing, as a people, much more of a national character, and 
learning to set a higher and juster value on everything com- 
prised under the epithet An\erican. ... To contribute to the 
conformation and diffusion of this patriotic spirit, by giving a 
place, as often as possible, to valuable papers of American 

5 / / ^^ 

■ / / 




h I 



50 

composition, constitutes, in our estimation, an indispensable 
duty of all our conductors of public journals."^ 

English critics at the beginning of the nineteenth century- 
had looked with disdain upon the attempts of what they still 
regarded as an inferior people to establish a national literature, 
and only those Americans of considerable independence of 
spirit were able to resist the infection. The general public 
were ready for the rise of a new literature, for the amount 
of reading was large. Charles Brockden Brown thought that 
tho we produced comparatively few original books the pro- 
portion of readers was not exceeded by any country in the 
world. 

The general public, in strong contrast with many critics, 
regarded the nationality of the author with considerable in- 
difference, the evidence afforded by Cooper's Precaution not- 
withstanding; unless perhaps this case may be accounted for 
as peculiarly temporary in character as being synchronous with 
the new and widespread vogue of Scott, which for a few years 
did lessen the popularity of American novels. As early as 
1790, however, Mrs. Rowson had published Charlotte Temple 
without attempting to conceal her identity. Its popularity was 
immediate and enduring. In 18 12 Carey was yet able to write 
to her: "... Mentavia never was very popular. The sales 
of the Trials of the heart have been slow. Charlotte Temple 
is by far the most popular & in my opinion the most useful 
novel ever published in this country & probably not inferior 
to any published in England. The Fille de chambre is like- 
wise popular — & the same may be said of Reuben & Rachel. 
... It may afford you great gratification to know that the 
sales of Charlotte Temple exceed those of any of the most 
celebrated novels that ever appeared in England. I think the 
number disposed of must far exceed 50,000 copies ; & the sale 
still continues. There has lately been published an edition at 
Hartford, of as Fanning owned 5000 copies, as a chapbook — 
& I have an edition in press of 3000, which I shall sell at 50 
or 623/2 cents." 

^ The Port Folio, Philadelphia, 1811 (sic), Vol. 7, pp. 171-2 (June, 1812, 
number). 



61 

Nor was this a purely isolated case. As noticed previously 
immense numbers of Carey's History of the Yellow Fever had 
been sold, and when his Olive Branch appeared in 1814 its 
popularity was even greater; while the popularity of Brown, 
in the later part of his career and after his death, is well 
known.^ 

In one branch of knowledge the Americans were clearly 
better circumstanced during this period than the British — that 
of exploration and its attendant study of races. As early as 
1770 the Abbe Raynal's book^ had produced a sensation and 
had been translated into almost every European language. 
America was, say by the time when Scott by his advent drew 
away attention from everything but the novel, comparatively 
little known to Europeans ; and in fact to the Americans them- 
selves, for Long had but just made his expedition of discov- 
ery, and St. Louis was yet a frontier town. William Bar- 
tram's Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, 
East and West Florida had gone thru two editions in Phila- 
delphia, by 1790, two in London two years later, and by 1801 
had been published at Dublin, Berlin, Haarlam, and Paris.* 
Possibly in this instance the popularity in England and Amer- 
ica was partly due to pure charm of style, but this could hardly 
have been the case with the other countries. The curiosity 
regarding a strange, new land to which many of their citizens 
were emigrating must have been the compelling reason for the 
popularity of such books. A trading upon this curiosity pro- 
duced such slanderous accounts as The Domestic Manners of 
the Americans (1831), American Notes (1842) and many 
more of the same sort. When a regular system of book ex- 
change had been established with England and Germany we 

^ The sale of Brown's novels was at first slow. In a letter to his brother 
Joseph he writes in 1800 : " Book-making is the dullest of all trades, and the 
utmost that any American can look for in his native country is to be 
reimbursed his unavoidable expenses." (Ellis Paxton Oberholzer, The 
Literary History of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1906, p. 167.) 

^ Histoire philosophique et politique des etablissements et du commerce 
des Europeens dans les deux Indes. 

* M. Katherine Jackson, Outlines of the Literary History of Colonial 
Pennsylvania, Columbia University Press, 1906, p. 148. 



52 

find that books on travel are those continually insisted upon, 
a demand which the American publishers are eager to meet 
and American writers willing and capable of filling. Offers 
of journals of travel are not infrequent. In 1819, D. H. Cot- 
terel, who has spent several months at Panama and upon the 
" Isthmus of Darien," wants to publish a history of his travels. 
He writes that a Panama canal is " not only feasible but easily 
practicable." 

The first regular interchange of books with any foreign 
country, as far as I have been able to find, was brought to pass 
thru this desire to learn about the geography and the history 
of America. In November, 1793, C. D. Ebeling,^ who signs 
himself Professor of History and Greek at the Hamburg 
Gymnasium, desires to open up a correspondence with an 
American publishing house in order especially to get works 
containing the data necessary for his forthcoming history. In 
reply to the first inquiry of Carey as to the possibility of an 
opening for American books in Germany he writes : " . . . But 
with regard to American books, I must tell you that English 
is not read so universally as you seem to think. Most of the 
best English books are translated immediately; the Booksellers 
look even to American Books already in order to publish them 
in German. So the Description of Kentucky you sent me is 
already translated at Nuremburg, at Leipsig and an abridg- 
ment published at the last place also. Bartram's Travels are 
translated at Berlin. Ramsay's History of the Revolution also. 

"Christopher Daniel Ebeling (1741-1817) was educated at the University 
of Gottingen. In 1769 he became instructor in the Handelsakademie at 
Hamburg, in 1784 Professor of History and Greek in the akademische 
Gymnasium of the same city, and in 1799 city librarian. His chief work in 
this last connection was the recataloguing of the library and the introduction 
of a more modern system. His collection of maps numbering 4000 volumes 
was bought by Israel Thorndike and brought to this country. He appears 
to have been one of the very first European authorities upon the geography 
and the history of America. He is the author of thirty-eight works, of 
which the most interesting to Americans are Amerikanische Bihliothek 
(1777— 1778) in four volumes ; the Neue Sammlung von Reisebeschreibungen 
(1780—90) in ten parts; and the Erdbeschreibung und Geschichte von 
America, which appeared (volume one in 1793) as part thirteen of Busch- 
ing's Erdbeschreibung. 



63 

Of Morse's Geography three translations are announced. The 
Description of Tennessee would sell if the map mentioned in 
the title page was with it. Carleton's map I fear will not sell. 

The laws of the U. S. and your magazine as also the 

(illegible) will do better. . . . From your Geography not more 
than a dozen might not be sold, for there is immediately a 
translator who purchases a copy and advertises a translation 
for half the price. . . ." 

On March 20, 1794, he says : ** The public libraries of Gottin- 
gen and other universities in Germany wish to establish a regu- 
lar correspondence with some active and accurate bookseller 
in America, by my help, and have given me order to procure 
them catalogues of New Books printed in America. They 
wish to be provided with the magazines, but only under condi- 
tion of a regular continuation, avoiding defects and duplicates." 

Ebeling contributed an article or so to Guthrie's Geography, 
published by Carey. He ordered American books in large 
numbers to use in preparing his own historical works and he 
also acted, without charge, as agent for Carey. He shows his 
true German anxiety for extreme accuracy when he tells Carey 
to send him copies of Kentucky, Tennessee, and western news- 
papers no matter how stained or torn. The entire correspon- 
dence, covering some fifty quarto pages of closely written 
matter, is very interesting as showing the attitude of Germany 
at this early period towards America. Later on, Ebeling turns 
the exchange over to a regular book firm, but it is interesting 
to note that the balance is always in favor of America.^ 

The demand for works on travel was not less eager in Eng- 
land. The critics there might sneer at the poetical productions 
of our country and at our novelists, but in this field they were 
disarmed by lack of information. 

But something more than a mere desire for knowledge was 
necessary to establish literature in America and to obtain rec- 
ognition for it abroad. There needed to be a deep interest 
among Americans for their country and a feeling that a litera- 
ture was worth building up. In neither of these feelings was 

•As an example of what the few Americans who knew German were 
reading in 1816, see Appendix IV, 



54 

Mathew Carey lacking. It soon became recognized that in 
him every aspiring author had a friend. When an enthusiast 
wants a new edition of the Poems of James Gates Percival, 
" the first poetical genius of this country," it is to Carey that 
he turns because of his " well known devotion to literature," a 
phrase that occurs more than once. No other publishing firm, 
even in proportion to its size, published so many works of 
native production between 1787 and 1824. As must be the 
case with every firm there were many requests for publication 
which could not be granted ; but no other publishing house 
could, during this period, point to such a list of names as Mrs. 
Rowson, Noah Webster, Freneau, Percival, Irving, Weems, 
John Neal, Cooper, and many others of lesser importance 
whose works were first issued in whole or in part by this enter- 
prising firm, which also first printed Scott and Dickens in this 
country. Later the firm or its direct successors published some 
of the first works of Foe and of Simms. Ferhaps the enthu- 
siasm of Carey for American literature inspired some of his 
agents to exertions in its behalf that were altogether too unre- 
strained. To the Rev. M. L. Weems, who never, it seems, did 
things by halves, it is necessary to write in 1821, "For Heaven 
sake do not encourage every man who has written a Book no 
matter whether good or bad to apply to us. You worry us to 
Death. We have full as much on our hands as we can 
manage." 

In other ways than as the mere disseminator of the works of 
other men Carey was of great value to America. A glance at 
the chronology of our literature during the first decades of the 
nineteenth century will show how much he contributed himself 
towards keeping his own typesetters busy. 

In 1810 the question of the renewal of the charter of the 
Bank of the United States came before the people. The charter 
was to expire on March 3, 181 1, and Carey, who had acquired 
fair experience as a bank director, took a deep interest in the 
matter. For three months he dropped all his business afifairs 
and devoted himself to securing a renewal ; because he foresaw, 
thus early, what really happened — the disasters consequent 
upon the excessively large number of state and private banks 



65 

founded upon fraudulent or insecure foundations, which so 
largely contributed to subsequent panics. The great majority 
of Carey's fellow Democrats were against the renewal, and so 
he, standing alone, was regarded as a traitor to his party and 
held in enmity by his quondam friends. Undaunted however 
by this isolation he began vigorously to uphold his opinions in 
a series of essays, seventeen or eighteen in number, which 
appeared in the Democratic Press, of Philadelphia, published 
by one John Binns, who, though personally opposing the re- 
newal, gave Carey entire freedom to promulgate his unpopular 
opinions thru his paper. Thru the columns of the same paper 
Carey was vigorously assailed and in the Aurora his motives 
were questioned, and his character attacked. Yet, undismayed, 
he continued the somewhat uneven fight; for the bank directors 
made little effort to defend themselves or to placate public 
opinion. 

The principal arguments used against the renewal of the 
charter were that it was "a National Bank," and that when 
re-chartered it would be under the control of the government, 
which did not have the power to appoint a single person, direc- 
tor or messenger, connected with it, and in the second place, — 
and argument dear to the Democrats — that it was in fact an 
English bank, a branch of the Bank of England. 

These views, and many another of lesser importance, Carey 
set himself to combat. But his efforts were coldly received 
by the very men he sought to protect. When he applied to the 
cashier for information regarding some points he wished to 
refute, it was refused him on the grounds, as he afterwards 
learned, that the directors did not wish it to appear that they 
had any connection with him. Notwithstanding all the efforts 
which he made in their behalf they never gave him a vote of 
thanks. Carey went to Washington in person in order to 
influence the Pennsylvania delegation as much as possible in 
favor of the renewal and to convince them of the danger of a 
non-renewal. As he followed the debates in Congress he marked 
what seemed to him absurd assumptions and conclusions, and 
in order to expose some of these he wrote, in a few hours, with 
that marvelous facility in composition so characteristic of him, 



66 

and had printed, a pamphlet entitled Desultory Reflections on 
the ruinous consequences of a non-renewal of the Chapter of 
the Bank of the United States. Some unguarded assertions, 
made in the haste of composition, appeared in the pamphlet, 
which caused the offended speaker to exclude the Reflections 
from the House; but nevertheless they were widely read. 
Carey published three editions, which he distributed at his own 
expense. A second pamphlet of eighty pages, entitled Nine 
Letters to Dr. Adam Seyhert, Representative in Congress for 
the City of Philadelphia, on the subject of the renewal of the 
charter of the Bank of the United States, was likewise dissemi- 
nated soon afterwards. 

Among other arguments, Carey drew attention to the fact 
that the government had sold, to private individuals, shares in 
the stock of the Bank of the United States some few years 
before and at a substantial advance. These purchases were 
made in full belief that the bank was to be as permanent as 
the Bank of England, otherwise the buyers would not have 
purchased at any price. If the charter were not renewed it 
was clear that the purchases would fall to par, and the pur- 
chasers would rightly be aggrieved at this betrayal of their 
trust in the honor and stability of the government. The oppo- 
sition to the bank was too strong to be resisted. So strong 
and destructive, in fact, did the mania against banks in general 
become during the heated controversy, that many advocated 
the abolition of all state banks as well as of the Bank of the 
United States, without taking thought of the chaotic financial 
condition such a step would cause. The measure for which 
Carey had worked so earnestly was at last lost in February, 
1811. 

In the light of subsequent events, however, Carey had proved 
himself a wise financier, for the untoward influences of the 
multiplication of state banks and the general suspension of 
specie payments as the result of the War of 1812 showed the 
statesmen of the time that the restraining influence of the " old 
regulator," the Bank of the United States, was badly needed, 
and the second United States Bank was established at Phila- 
delphia on April 3, 181 6. Indeed it might be said that Carey 



57 

saw his stand twice vindicated, for the panic of 1837 was 
largely a result of the encouragement afforded to unsound 
banks by the veto of President Jackson to the bill for the 
renewal of the charter of the United States Bank in July, 1832. 

Carey has left it on record, in his Autobiography,'^ that he 
considered that the three most important achievements of his 
life were, the publication of the Vindiciae Hihernicae, the de- 
fense of the Protective System, and the publication of the 
Olive Branch. To the average American the first work is of 
much less interest than the last. In the Olive Branch Carey 
has treated a great crisis in American history, the internal dis- 
sensions of the War of 1812, in a vigorous and helpful way. 
In his pages we obtain vivid glimpses of the bitter wrong that 
drove our country into that struggle, and of the treacherous 
factionalism whose rancour brought the Union to the very 
verge of civil war and dissolution. We had met disaster after 
disaster on land. The Hartford Convention showed the danger 
from within; the president had called, in his message of No- 
vember 4, 181 2, for new and mysterious legislation against 
" corrupt and perfidious intercourse with the enemy, not 
amounting to treason," and sectional and partisan feeling was 
running higher than ever before or after, with one exception. 
Civil war was never far away. Carey's dedication to the 
second edition, January 4, 181 5, is not overdrawn. " Go, Olive 
Branch, into a community, which, drugged into a death-like 
stupor, with unparalleled apathy beholds the pillars of the gov- 
ernment tearing away — property sinking in value — the country 
prostrate at the feet of a ruthless foe, anarchy rapidly ap- 
proaching, a number of ambitious leaders, regardless of the 
common danger, struggling to sieze upon the government, and 
apparently determined the country shall go to perdition, unless 
they can possess themselves of power; and, with this view, 
opposing and defeating every measure, calculated to insure 
salvation. Appeal to the patriotism, the honor, the feeling, the 
self-interest of your readers, to save a noble nation from ruin." 

Carey was appalled by the violence of some of the leaders of 
the Federalists, the anti-administration party, who opposed the 

'Vol. VII, p. 239. 



58 

war, and disgusted by the inactivity of the Democrats. With 
a mind harrowed by doubts of the continued existence of his 
country, he sat down on September 6, 1814, to do what he 
might to avert the disaster which seemed imminent. The one 
solution at that time appeared to be a radical change in the 
administration whereby the cooperation of the Federalists 
might be obtained by giving them a fuller share in the control 
of the government. This he thought might be brought about 
by the resignation of certain members of the administration. 
Carey acknowledges, on the one hand, the arrogance of this 
plan and, on the other, its weakness, but the situation seemed 
too desperate for hesitation. With this idea he began to write. 
Then the news came of the defeat of the British at Baltimore, 
of Macdonough's triumph on Lake Champlain, in the signal 
victory at Plattsburgh. This put a better aspect on the face of 
affairs, and Carey was led to believe that a candid appeal to the 
honor and the patriotism of both parties might even then unite 
them. 

Yet, he writes, " I was struck with astonishment at my 
Quixotism and folly, in expecting to make an impression on a 
community, torn in pieces by faction ; a prey to the most violent 
passions ; and laboring under the most awful degree of delu- 
sion."^ The patriotism and love of his fellow men which 
always so powerfully swayed Carey won the day, however. 

*' I should have preferred by far, for the remainder of my 
life, steering clear of the quicksands of politics. None of the 
questions that have heretofore divided parties in this country 
could have induced me upon the tempestuous ocean. But at a 
crisis like the present, neutrality would be guilt. . . . 

" While I was deliberating about the sacrifices which such a 
publication as this requires, one serious and affecting con- 
sideration removed my doubts, and decided my conduct. See- 
ing the thousands of the flower of our population — to whom 
the spring of life just opens with all its joy, and pleasures, 
and enchantments — prepared in the tented field to risk, or, if 

^ The Olive Branch; Or, Faults on both Sides, Federal and Democratic. 
A Serious Appeal to the Necessity of Mutual Forgiveness and Harmony. 
Sixth Edition, Philadelphia, September, 1815, p. 30. All references are to 
this edition, unless otherwise specified, though the first edition of November, 
1 814, has been collated. 



59 

necessary, sacrifice their lives for their country's welfare ; I 
thought it baseness in me, whose sun has long passed the 
meridian, and on whom the attractions of life have ceased to 
operate with their early fascination, to have declined any risk 
that might arise from the effort to ward off the parricidal 
stroke aimed at a country to which I owe such heavy obliga- 
tions. With this view of the subject I could not decide other- 
wise than I had done.^ . . . When tender women have freely 
gone to the stake or to the gibbet, for dogmas, which they 
could not understand ; it does not require a very extraordinary 
degree of heroism, for a man of fifty-five, to run any risques, 
of person or character, that may attend a bold appeal to the 
good sense of the nation, with a view to acquire the benedic- 
tion, pronounced in the declaration, ' Blessed are the peace- 
makers.' "i<* 

Inspired by such high motives Carey took up the task more 
vigorously than ever. Even with his usual speed and his extra- 
ordinary capacity for work, it yet remains something of a 
mystery how he managed to produce between September 6 and 
November 8, a book the size of the first edition of The Olive 
Branch, for aside from the mere composition, the amount of 
research was extremely large. State documents, histories, pri- 
vate correspondence, and newspapers were ransacked to estab- 
lish every point at issue. 

The first part of the book is devoted to a review of the 
desperate condition of the country — a condition that should 
have caused every man to bury the discords of partisanship 
and to stand upon the broader grounds of mutual forgiveness 
and patriotic toleration. Then, in order that the reason for 
this spirit of fraternal patriotism may be clear, Carey enters 
into the errors that have characterized both parties. To the 
Democrats he charges too great fear of the federal government, 
opposition to the establishment of a small navy, the Alien and 
Sedition law. Jay's treaty, and the non-renewal of the Bank of 
the United States. An equally heavy bill of errors is drawn 
up against the Federalists. 

Then apparently Carey asks himself : Is the war a just one, 
in defense of the people and their rights and waged in response 

"Z&trf., p. 15. 
" Ibid., p. 34. 



60 

to their demand, or is it the result of narrow party interest 
carried on at the expense of a large and injured section of the 
country? He proceeds to show that in 1805 and 1806 the in- 
dignation of the people and of the mercantile interests in par- 
ticular, the latter of whom were the most determined opponents 
of the war, was so roused by the pretensions of Great Britain 
to limit the trade of Americans in the colonial productions of 
her enemies, that they seemed almost determined to force the 
administration into war. Memorials of Newburyport, Salem, 
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore merchants 
during these two years are given in full to prove his assertion 
that the merchants of the country had aided very materially in 
placing the government in a position where war was the only 
logical outcome. From Newburyport to Baltimore, he asserts 
mercantile citizens of the United States goaded the government 
to a resistance of the flagrant outrages and high-handed pre- 
tensions of Great Britain. In a passage that exhibits one of 
the characteristic methods of the work, he turns upon one of 
these bodies of memorialists and says : " When the merchants 
of Newburyport 'Rely with confidence on the Firmness and 
Justice of the government, to obtain for them compensation 
and protection,' they must have been insane, if they did not 
calculate upon War as the ultima ratio. These are the worthy 
citizens who stand recorded in the annals of their country, as 
having since patriotically pledged themselves to resist their own 
government, * Even unto Blood.' "^^ The method is, I repeat, 
characteristic, but the spirit of invective is most unusual in all 
the works of Carey, and the scarcity of such passages elsewhere 
shows how strongly his feelings were here aroused. 

The wrongs so freely dealt out to us by a nation which 
seemed blindly bent upon forcing us into war, are dwelt upon at 
length in order that those opposed to the war may no longer 
say that it was unprovoked and needless. The withering effect 
of those futile measures of retaliation, the Non-Intercourse 
Act, and the Embargo acts, are shown in full. 

But what of course finally precipitated the war was the im- 
pressment of American seamen ; and in the cause of the sailor, 

^The Olive Branch, p. 10 1, 



61 

who seemed then to have had all too few friends, Carey enters 
with characteristic warmth of heart and fullness of unimpeach- 
able detail. Here in the dry, terse language of naval reports 
and of affidavits are narrated outrages and burning wrongs 
that yet make the blood flame. When, over the signatures of 
Commodore Rogers and of Commodore Porter, who quote 
from the log-books of the vessels concerned, it was shown that 
one-eighth of the crews of the Moselle and of the Sapho were 
impressed Americans^^ (who, too, were doubtless told that " if 
they fell in with an American man-of-war, and they did not do 
their duty, they should be tied to the mast, and shot like 
dogs,"^^), the full enormity of Great Britain's crime against 
the law of nations must have come home to the most fanatical 
opposers of the war. But not content with one instance or 
two, Carey multiplies case after case. And yet some said 
that the war was not justified ! 

"They deride the idea of struggling for the security of a 
few sailors, whom, in the face of heaven and earth, they falsely 
call vagabonds from England, Ireland, and Scotland, whom our 
governmicnt is wickedly protecting at the hazard of the ruin of 
their country! Almighty father! To what an ebb is man 
capable of descending ! Let us suppose for a moment that the 
illustrious Hull, Jones, Perry, Porter, Decatur, M'Donough, 
or any other of that constellation of heroes, who have bound 
their country's brows with a wreath of imperishable glory, had 
been pressed by a Cockburn, their proud spirits subjected to 
his tender mercies, and crushed by the galling chain and the 
rope's end! What a scene for a painter — what a subject for 
contemplation — what a neverdying disgrace to those whose 
counsels would persuade the nation to submit to such degrada- 
tion !"i* 

Never, said Carey, was a war more justified. Our trade 
with fifty millions of the inhabitants of Europe was annihilated. 
In little more than a year, in 1803 and 1804, over twelve hun- 
dred seamen, claiming to be American citizens, sought the 
relief and protection of the American government thru the 
British government and the American agent. The self-respect 

^ The Olive Branch, p. 210. 
^ Ibid., p. 213. 
^* Ibid., p. 216. 



62 

and prestige of our nation must have been completely destroyed 
by further submission. 

What was doubtless one of the most convincing and con- 
ciliating parts of The Olive Branch is the proof, thru the statis- 
tics supplied by the treasury reports, that the so-called "com- 
mercial states," the New England group, were really at this 
period of decidedly lesser importance as exporting, shipping, 
and importing states than those to the west and south of them. 
Their contention, then, that they were the great sufferers by 
the war thru the blow that it dealt at their commerce was 
greatly weakened. 

That the book sketched in such limited space produced a 
wide and profound impression is beyond question. The num- 
ber of editions testify to its popularity. At least eight issues 
were demanded — four from Carey's own press and one each at 
Boston, Middlebury, Vermont, Cincinnati, and Winchester, 
Virginia. 

The second edition of one thousand copies was sold out in 
five weeks. Peace did not limit the demand, on the contrary 
it increased. As the New England states formed the section 
in which the work was most necessary, Carey attempted to get 
it printed in Boston. His offer of the free privilege of print- 
ing an edition there was accepted, and although the edition ap- 
peared after peace had been declared, it was immediately sold 
out. The fifth edition, also printed under gratuitous privileges, 
and issued at Middlebury, consisted of one thousand, nine 
hundred and twenty copies. When we consider that The Olive 
Branch was no mere pamphlet but a decidedly substantial 
octavo volume, we see that its utility must have been fully 
recognized. " No political work, to my knowledge," writes 
Carey, "has ever had an equal degree of success in America, 
except the * Common Sense.' Four editions were sold in eight 
months ; two more are at this moment in the press ; and a 
seventh, as I said, is about to be printed. Nevertheless, it is 
not quite twelve months since the work was begun, and not 
ten since the first edition was published."^^ 

" The Olive Branch, p. 32. The copy which I am using, and presumably 
the entire (sixth) edition, has pages 37 to 44 inclusive renumbered as pages 
29 to 36. The reference is to the first page 32. 




63 




One need not go far afield to discover reasons why The Olive 
Branch was so popular. The subject was one of overwhelming 
importance. Too clearly could everyone see the imminent 
danger which threatened the Union, and tho there were poli- 
ticians of influence and power who were willing to attain lead- 
ership thru the ruin of their country, however small the frac- 
tion of it which they led and however despicable the methods 
employed, yet the immense body of the people were patriotically 
alive to their danger and only seeking light and certainty in the 
midst of doubt and distraction. To such The Olive Branch 
must have been in the nature of a revelation. In its pages 
they found not the unsupported, exaggerated, and inflammatory 
excesses, which formed such a large part of the newspaper 
articles of the times and of the utterances from factional pulpit 
and platform, but calm and judicious statements backed by 
documents at whose authenticity and weight there could be no 
cavil. They must have felt, too, the essential fairness of the 
writer, extended even to his hereditary enemy. Great Britain. 
The free use of capitals and of italics, with the frequently 
admonishing index hand, made the work easy to read for even 
the most careless and unlearned. Carey was no mean master 
of argument, and many of his points must have gone home with 
decisive force. One rises from a perusal of The Olive Branch 
with the feeling that wide and accurate reading, a vigorous 
mind with special ability in polemics, absolute fairmindedness, 
and flaming patriotism have here united in the production of a 
work that falls little short of a classic of its kind. 

It entitles Carey to a large space in any study of the develop- 
ment of American nationalism. As an impassioned plea for 
union and for resistance to the arrogance of Great Britain in 
the impressment of American citizens, it can hardly be read 
without a feeling of indignation for Great Britain and a blush 
of shame for a party so treacherous that it was willing to let 
its fellow countrymen meet the alternative of firing upon their 
flag or of facing the gallows or the hardly less horrible prison 
hulk. Poe calls it a " quixotic publication,"^^ but with com- 

" Edgar Allen Poe, The Southern Literary Messenger, Richmond, Virginia, 
1836, Vol. II, p. 203-5. Article reviewing Carey's Autobiography. 



64 

plimentary connotation, and if Don Quixote accelerated the 
downfall of a crumbling institution no less must The Olive 
Branch have caused many a potential overthrower of his own 
government to pause in his career. 

The War of 1812 was in itself a powerful influence against the 
synchronous development of a national literature. The condi- 
tions that preceded it were also anything but favorable ; for the 
long swell of the two titanic movements in Europe — the French 
Revolution, and especially the Napoleonic wars, — was always 
evident in America. When Ebeling disburdens himself in long 
letters about the horrors that were going on around him, when 
Cobbett writes of the movements in Great Britain that he 
fights so bitterly, both are addressing the representative of a 
country which was hesitating between England and France. 
What chance was there in these hours of indecision that a 
great literature should yet appear? When an Armada is 
darkening the shores such a literature may be blossoming, for 
in such a case there is no division ; when a great cause is being 
lost there may be some appealing notes of a passionate regret, 
a Conquered Banner, that carries conviction to all hearts ; but 
when sullen hatred and mutual distrust are predominant there 
can be no true literature. Mr. Whitcomb, in his Chronological 
Outlines of American Literature, found singularly few entries 
for this period; and we can hardly accuse him of being too 
rigid in his requirements. The political situation was too 
all-absorbing and too uncertain for much energy to be turned 
into literary channels. 

The demand for books during the struggle was extremely 
small — smaller than might be expected, for, in striking con- 
trast to the Revolution, there was almost nothing except the 
Olive Branch to inspirit those carrying on the war or to allay 
the feeling of party hatred. A typical letter from Richmond, 
Virginia, August 24, 1813, says, " Business is remarkably dull 
here at present. We can sell nothing but Military Books and 
among them Duane's Handbook for Infantry takes the lead — 
nearly all of those last sent me are already sold, and the 
demand is still great. It takes a long time to get a parcel of 
books bound here, for all the men are gone to the war." Only 



65 

once is a mistake made. A shocked Quaker of New Jersey 
threatens to " dispatch " " 20 copies of Sword Exercise " by 
putting them into a " good, large fire." Letters of agonizing 
doubt and fear containing no reference to books are frequent. 
Evidently the strong and helpful personality of Carey was 
clearly and widely recognized. 

While the retarding forces of the War of 1812 upon the 
development of our literature have not been overestimated, 
there was another reason why the period was peculiarly barren. 
One race of literary men seemed to be dying out, and the new 
one which forms the pride of American literature was just 
coming into existence. Fessenden, last of the Hartford Wits, 
was to survive until 1837, but by 1812 the work of that group 
was almost over, as well as the work of those writers who 
made the literature of the Revolution. In 1812 when Joel 
Barlow and Joseph Dennie died, Harriet Beecher (Stowe) was 
six months old — names significant that 

The old order changeth, yielding place to new. 
Two years before Charles Brockden Brown had died and Mar- 
garet Fuller (Ossoli) had been born. Soon Bryant, thru the 
North American Review, was to begin the prelude. 

Deep as had been the humiliations connected with many of 
the features of the war and dire as the dangers had at times 
been, few wars have been equally well worth the winning; for 
if the war showed America that it must stand alone politically, 
no longer to be divided against itself in favor of France or of 
England, no less did it show those who had longingly turned 
their faces towards Great Britain as worthy alone of their 
intellectual homage, that America must seek her guidance from 
within. Soon all classes, feeling that they truly stood apart 
and must play their own game, had changed their attitude. 
William Henry Creagh writes from New York, May 6, 1818, 
" I commenced the publication of a weekly paper the ' Euro- 
pean ' for the purpose of giving the Political intelligence from 
the Old Country in detail, under the impression that the Natives 
of Great Britain and Ireland generally retained their ardour 
for the wellfare and interest of their Native Land after they 
had fixed their Abode in this Country, but I was so far mis- 
6 



66 

taken that I find a general apathy pervades the greater part of 
them, and instead of meeting with my anticipated success, I 
have not sufficient subscribers to the work to pay my expenses." 
Had the venture been made ten years earlier the result, in all 
probability, would have been quite different. 

The recovery of the demand for books was fairly rapid, that 
for educational works especially so.^'^ In some localities the 
scarcity of money prevented large sales, the agents or dealers 
frequently writing that the people want books but have no 
money. A typical letter of the period is this one: 

"Augusta, Georgia January 24th 18 17. 

"Dear Sir 

"... Books of every description will sell well in this place. 
Military works are in great demand, there is not one of any 
kind for sale in Augusta. I can find immediate sale for 4 
or 500$ worth of Modern Medical Publications ; Law Books, 
such as are suitable to American practice and of State publica- 
tion are in demand. The following Books have been much 
called for Peak's Evidence, Bell's Surgery, Ainsworth's Dic- 
tionary, Josephus' Works, Cicero Delphini, translated, Horace 
Delphini do, Virgil, Main's Introduction, Pockett Testament, 
do. Bibles, Davis' Sermons, Reading Exercises or sequel to 
Mason's Spelling Book — Indeed everything suitable for a book- 
store to vend, finds ready sale. 

Yours etc. James Finlaters." 

We have seen how American writers gained recognition in 
Germany thru books of travel and other works of information. 
There seems to be no evidence that American works, others 
than those of this class, were read at all there during the first 
quarter of the nineteenth century. But by the end of 1825 
America had built up such a mass of literature and her younger 
generation was showing such signs of literary ability that 
England, was forced to take notice. The year before, John 
Neal, who bubbled over with patriotism, had, after " appalling " 
the American public by his genius as a novelist,^® invaded the 
enemies' country with a series of articles in Blackwood's on 
American Writers, while on July 11, 1826, only six years after 

" Several letters from Thomas Jefferson relating to such books occur about 
this period. See Appendix V. 
" See Appendix VI. 



67 

Sydney Smith's sneer, "Who reads an American Book?", 
Miss Mitford writes to Haydon, apropos of The Last of the 
Mohicans (which, be it observed, had just appeared that year), 
"How wonderfully America is rising in the scale of intellect! 
... If you have not read the American novels, do so. Depend 
on it that America will succeed us as Rome did Athens ;^^ and 
it is a comfort to think that by their speaking the same beau- 
tiful language, Shakespeare and Milton will not be buried in 
the dust of a scholar's library, but live and breathe in after 
ages as they do now to us."^** 

In 1830 we find her engaged on the compilation of Stories 
of American Life by American Writers which she prepares 
from an immense mass of material. The work she thinks 
" will be really very good — characteristic, national, various and 
healthy."2i 

If it is now evident that American authors were able to get a 
hearing in Great Britain,^^ no less evident was it that Amer- 
ican publishers were becoming internationally prominent. In 
1816 a London bookseller had written in response to Carey's 
inquiry that "the 41st, Geo. Ill Cap. 107 — prohibits the Im- 
portation of or selling of any Books reprinted from English 
editions." Evidently American publishers were more than 
meeting the domestic demand, and were beginning to seek new 
territory. The law referred to seems to have been repealed, 

*" Compare Frederic Loliee, A Short History of Comparative Literature, 
London, 1906, p. 297. M. Loliee thinks that, in the novel at least, the time 
has already come. 

^ Rev. A. G. K. L'Estrange, The Life of Mary Russel Mitford . . . Told 
by Herself in Letters to Her Friends, New York, 1870, Vol. II, p. 60. 

^ Ibid,, p. III. 

^ Wiley & Putnam's American Book Circular, April, 1843, gives the fol- 
lowing classification of American books printed in England. 



Theology 


68 






History 


22 


Fiction 


66 






Poetry 


12 


Juvenile 


56 






Metaphysics 


II 


Travels 


32 






Philology 


10 


Education 


41 






Science 


9 


Biography 


26 






Law 


9 


Quoted in Congressional Record, 


Wash 


ington, 


, 1888, Vol. XIX, 


p. Z2Z7- 



68 

or else not enforced, for on May i8, 1823, Carey is able to write 
to his agent, Mr. John Miller of Henrietta Street, London, that 
"a very brisk trade is now carried on in the exportation of 
the works of Byron, Scott, Moore etc. etc. Several large edi- 
tions have been reed from there lately, and as the American 
Editions are handsomely printed and at a low price they will be 
constantly in demand. They would form a very excellent 
medium of remittance for us if it could be done with profit 
and safety." 

South America was also a field for American enterprise, tho 
many ventures here appear to have been unsuccessful. The 
first attempt was made at Buenos Ayres in 1821, but if we may 
judge from the absence of letters and orders, it soon proved a 
failure. A letter from Caracas, June 28 (received August 24), 
1822, says that there is a good chance for a bookstore and for 
the sale of Spanish and French medical books especially. Ap- 
parently the Spanish colonists, who were winning their freedom 
at this period, sought inspiration in the heroes of the American 
Revolution ; for this letter, as well as several later ones, contains 
a large order for framed engravings of American patriots. 
Spanish works on Masonry were also in active demand as the 
natives " are well disposed to initiate themselves in the Mys- 
teries." A later order makes a special request for Spanish- 
English, English-Spanish and Spanish-French, French-Spanish 
grammars and for Spanish novels. A few days previously Carey 
had made arrangements for a representative at Gibraltar who 
should send him copies of any new Spanish work of interest 
that might be published, especially " Plays, Politics, Political 
Economy, etc." As only single copies for republication were 
desired it is evident that the books furnished South America 
were printed in this country and then forwarded, and that 
Carey was not merely a middleman between Spain and her 
colonies or former colonies. If any further evidence is needed 
it lies in the fact that the firm issued a Spanish dictionary in 
two volumes on October 22, 1822. 

It seems best here, for chronological reasons, to take a brief 
survey of some of the activities of Carey as yet untouched 
upon and not immediately connected with the publishing trade ; 



69 

for Carey the man is well worth more than a casual acquaint- 
ance. 

The feeling of love for his mother country and of loyalty 
towards his people, the Irish, was never obscured in Carey 
by the strong sense of patriotism towards the United States. 
Ample testimony to this is shown in his constant aid to Irish 
immigrants, which is noticed elsewhere ; and it has already been 
pointed out also how his injudicious and fervid defense of his 
country caused his banishment at an early age to France. It 
was this feeling which impelled Carey, in February, 1818, to 
undertake to defend Ireland and the Irish against the asper- 
sions, "the unparalleled libels and calumnies," which had so 
long filled the pages of the English histories of Ireland, and 
especially those unjust accusations regarding the insurrection 
of 1 641. Filled with a burning sense of indignation at the 
wrong done his countrymen, he had long planned such a work 
as his Vindiciae Hihernicae,^^ but the pressure of the daily 
affairs of a strikingly busy life had caused him to defer it, 
until in 1817 the deciding motive came in the publication of 
Godwin's Mandeville which revived many of the legends and 
horrors of the pretended massacre of 1641. Indignant at this 
perversion of the truth, and desirous to offset the wide effect 
of this pernicious romance, Carey began work in earnest upon 
the book that, next to The Olive Branch, is probably the most 
elaborate and sustained of his literary efforts. In addition to 
the incentive furnished by the romance, Carey had at this time 
another impelling reason for writing. The question of Cath- 
olic emancipation was then being discussed, and he felt that 
if he could only remove the great stumbling block, the tales 
of the plots and the massacre of 1641, he might give most 
potent aid in doing away with a situation in which the large 
majority of an unfortunate people was practically held in sub- 
jection by an inconsiderable minority. 

^Vindiciae Hibernicae : or Ireland Vindicated: An Attempt to Develop 
and Expose a few of the multifarious Errors and Falsehoods respecting Ire- 
land in the Histories of May, Temple, Whitelock — and others, etc.. Particu- 
larly in the Legendary Tales of the Conspiracy and Pretended Massacre of 
1641. Philadelphia, 1819. (Second edition, Philadelphia, 1823.) 



70 

Carey went into the matter of the preparation of the Vin- 
diciae with great thoroughness. He purchased all the books 
that seemed to have any important bearing on the subject, 
bought a share in the New York Library, procured books from 
the Burlington Library, and borrowed everything available 
from his friends. Then he spent six months going through 
the books and liberally marking in parentheses the passages of 
importance. These passages he had copied by an amanuensis. 
The actual number of works quoted from is, in the second 
edition, seventy, and the number of separate quotations is 
eleven hundred and forty-three. 

The methods employed remind one of Dickens during his 
most busy period, and they exceeded even Dickens' in the 
haste with which the copy was turned out and the pressure 
under which the work was performed. If Carey may be said 
to have been a genius at all, he was certainly what has been 
called a " large " and not a " fine " genius. Tho the following 
passage from the Autobiography (in the New England Maga- 
zine, Vol. VI, pp. 401-2) may be a somewhat extreme example 
of his method, it is worthy of quotation, for almost all Carey's 
writing were turned out at a pressure but slightly less than 
here described. 

"As soon as I had twenty or twenty-five pages written, I put 
them into the hands of Mrs. Bailey, my printer, who every 
evening sent me a proof of the matter set up in type, and I 
returned the proof with a fresh supply of MS. next morning. 
The matter was printed in columns, and then arranged in proper 
order. 

" Thus the MS. written one day was in type the next, 
throughout the whole progress of the work; and I was rarely 
ever more than one or two days ahead of the printer. I need 
not say how very disadvantageous was this plan. It fully ac- 
counts for the want of order and regularity in the work. . . . 

" By a destitution in my cranium of the bump designating 
the power of arrangement, I have never been able to adjust 
my matter in proper order till it was set up in type, and a proof 
taken in columns, so that I might have a thorough view of the 
connection. Thus the paragraphs were so often transposed, 
that the first, and middle and last changed places. The sen- 
tences underwent the same changes, — some were wholly 
omitted, — some transposed, — others substituted, — and thus the 



71 

whole appearance of the matter was altered. This system, the 
result of my utter deficiency of the proper mode of arranging 
my MS. had at all times greatly enhanced the expense of my 
printing." 

The Vindiciae, he continues, cost $135 for corrections, and 
the setting up of the types but $369. And he adds, what soon 
becomes evident to his reader, that he was " at all times ex- 
travagant in the article of printing." 

Carey felicitates himself upon the number of his quotations 
and the accuracy with which they are placed by page and by 
edition, so that refutation charges of unjust warping of an 
author's view would be impossible. To avoid any charges of 
partisanship he practically refrained from quoting from or 
referring to Catholic writers, but used Protestant authorities 
almost entirely. In these two features of his work Carey 
thinks that he stood much in advance of his times, and in an 
age when personal vituperation, misquotation, and flagrant 
partisanship was the rule, it seems that his view was justified. 

The Vindiciae Hihernicae is occupied with the refutation of 
eight views of the Irish usually held, and supported by the 
majority of the British historians. It is not necessary here to 
enter into a discussion of each of these points. Two or three, 
however, upon which Carey throws most emphasis may be 
glanced at. He especially objects to the assertion that the 
Catholics of Ireland enjoyed full legal and social toleration in 
the exercise of their religion, and full protection in their prop- 
erty rights during the forty years preceding 1641. He traces 
the origin of the assertion that they did to Temple, and by aid 
of the " deadly parallel " he attempts to show that Clarendon, 
Warner, and Hume follow Temple. What is more important, 
however, than the fair case he makes for his side of the matter 
in this way are the extracts from state papers which he quotes 
in rebuttal of Temple and his imitators. These papers, which 
seem to have been overlooked or ignored by Temple, Clarendon, 
and the others go a long way towards proving the point which 
Carey is endeavoring to establish. 

Turning then to another point which especially aroused his 
hatred of intolerance and injustice, Carey proceeds to prove 
that no real massacre ever took place or was planned in 1641. 



72 

The method used in this case is to point out the inconsistencies 
and absurdities in the narration of the occurrence as given in 
Temple's History of the Irish Rebellion. Temple's entire ac- 
count, when clearly and coldly analyzed, as here by Carey, is 
absurd, and so Carey scores another point in his vindication. 
Most of the other historical authorities, he shows, have again 
followed Temple. The entire testimony upon which the large 
majority of the historians had founded their narrative is shown 
to rest upon hearsay, often thrice removed. 

Of the Vindiciae Carey says in his Autobiography (in the 
New England Magazine, Vol. VII, p. 239) : " The publication 
of the Vindiciae Hibernicae was among the most important 
operations of my life — and one that affords me as much heart- 
felt satisfaction as anything I have ever done, not excepting 
the defense of the Protecting System, and the publication of 
the Olive Branch." 

The entire work is worthy our notice as revealing once more 
the essential fairness and want of rancour of the man. The 
judicial cast of his mind comes out strongly. This is one of 
those books which shows his " Quixotic " nature in a most 
pleasing light. He undertakes the defense of an entire people, 
and attempts to change the verdict of the opinions of two other 
peoples (English and Americans) founded upon what had been 
received as history since Temple's Introduction of 16^5. 

A pamphlet of some interest related at many points to the 
Vindiciae was published at Philadelphia on January i, 1829.^* 
Perhaps it is enough to quote in part the descriptive title: 
Letters on Religious Persecution, Proving, that the most Hein- 
ous of Crimes, has not been peculiar to Roman Catholics: But 
that when they had the Power, Protestants of almost every 
Denomination have been equally guilty .... In reply to a 
libellous attack on Roman Catholics, in an Address delivered to 
a Society of Irish Orange Men . . . By a Catholic Layman. 
The entire pamphlet of sixty-eight quarto pages is a character- 
istic plea for toleration and mutual forgiveness of the crimes 
which Carey shows both Catholics and Protestants have com- 
mitted against each other. Among those " liberal and superior 
spirits, who scorn to calumniate, abuse, and villi fy their un- 

^ The copy before me belongs to the fourth edition. 



73 

offending fellow citizens," to whom it is dedicated, there was 
none more liberal and just than the writer himself. 

Although enough has already been said to bring out the 
fact that Carey had a rare spirit of love and helpfulness for 
his fellow-men, that fact has not received emphasis com- 
mensurate to its importance. It was not until his retirement 
from active business, in 1824, moreover, that this side of 
Carey's nature had full scope for its activity. Up almost to 
his death he was engaged by voice and by example in better- 
ing the lot of his less fortunate fellow-men, tho his activities 
from 1824 to 1830 can be much more fully and accurately 
traced than from 1830 to his death, because of the greater 
amount of data obtainable on the former period. 

In the first cessation from active business duties the mind 
of Carey appeared, as was quite natural in the new and 
strange leisure, to have gone back to the days of his youth 
and the scenes of Europe therein pictured. He was seized 
with a desire to alleviate transatlantic conditions. His warm 
sympathies had been previously aroused, however, in behalf 
of some of those Europeans, especially Irishmen, who had been 
bold or fortunate enough to reach this country. In 1792 he 
had called a meeting at the Philadelphia Coffee-House of a 
number of the most prominent Irishmen of the city to devise 
means for ameliorating the sufferings of the Irish immigrants 
who were then arriving in such large numbers, friendless and 
penniless. He had previously prepared a constitution for a 
society, which was read and adopted, and an organization 
called The Hibernian Society was formed for the relief of 
emigrants from Ireland. Hugh Holmes was elected president 
and Carey secretary, a position which he held for a number of 
years. In 1834 the society was still in existence with a long 
record of usefulness to its credit. 

Now, however, in 1824, the sympathies of Carey had wider 
scope. He formed the design of encouraging, as far as he 
could, emigration from Europe that the condition of the masses 
might be bettered, for those who came, directly, and for those 
who stayed, indirectly, by the slight decrease in population. 
Perhaps this was one of those schemes which Poe had in 



74 

mind when he said Carey was " Quixotic." At any rate Carey 
took himself seriously. In May, 1826, he published a pamphlet 
called Reflections on the Subject of Emigration from Europe. 
The Reflections was intended as a sort of handbook on the 
United States for the European. Carey endeavored to have 
it circulated as widely as possible in Europe, especially in 
Great Britain, in order that it might bring to the attention of 
the common people the advantages of the United States to 
those of unassured position in their own country. He de- 
signed it moreover as a warning to those in comfortable cir- 
cumstances not to seek America as an El Dorado where a 
competency might become a fabulous fortune. America and 
Americans are discussed for the benefit of the foreigner. 
The independence of our citizens, the ease of acquiring landed 
property, the small burden of our taxation, and the freedom 
of religion are all entered into. In a love of parents for 
children and the mildness of discipline Carey finds matter for 
comment. He points out that primogeniture has not left its 
curse on the lives of the younger born. To the agricultural 
classes he extends a modified welcome, while the manufac- 
turers are warned away. The mechanic is assured of ample 
employment. 

The effect of Carey's pamphlet remains shrouded in ob- 
scurity. It may be deduced, however, that it gave no imme- 
diate aid to the Irish at least; for in July, 1828, Carey has 
another scheme again on foot for their relief. He thinks it 
possible to interest the employers of labor in sending an agent 
over to Ireland who should make clear to the inhabitants the 
manifold advantages of America and the means by which 
these blessings might be enjoyed. Those unable to pay for 
their own passage might be bound over for a period, as was 
often done at this time, to pay for their passage, but under 
strict watch to guard against this period being made too long. 
August II, 1828, was appointed as the day for a meeting of 
all those interested. But alas! a little footnote records inter- 
est as a minus quantity. 

If, however, the reader is inclined to smile at these two 
schemes of Carey, however much he may sympathize with 



75 

the desire to aid humanity which prompted them, he can rest 
assured that fruit was not wanting to most of the labors of 
the formulator. For many years Carey had been actively 
engaged in charitable work in the city of Philadelphia, where 
the poor laboring women in particular recognized in him an 
unwearying friend. The ever-present denouncer of charity 
as an encouragement to idleness seems to have been particu- 
larly obnoxious in Philadelphia in 1829; for in March of that 
year Carey wrote an elaborate pamphlet entitled Essays on the 
Public Charities of Philadelphia, in which, to paraphrase the 
rest of the descriptive title, he vindicates the benevolent socie- 
ties of the city from the charge of encouraging idleness, and 
places in strong relief the suffering and oppression under 
which labored the greater part of the women who depended 
on their industry for the support of themselves and their 
children. 

This pamphlet, which Carey says cost him ''more time, 
labour, and expense, than articles four times the size," reached 
at least five editions, the first three of which were printed and 
distributed gratuitously by the author, and the fourth of which 
was published partly at his expense. While not an advocate 
of woman's rights as now understood, his sympathies were 
actively aroused by the miserable compensation offered the 
woman who had to support herself, and perhaps a family. 
As the head of a committee he addressed a letter, January 
13, 1829, to P. B. Porter, then Secretary of War, remonstrat- 
ing with the government against the inadequate wages paid to 
women for making the governmental clothing for soldiers. 
Some correspondence ensued, but the government seemed 
disinclined to make a change. Carey draws a depressing pic- 
ture of the misery and poverty in the Philadelphia of his day. 
He always combats the opinion, so prevalent among the rich, 
that the poor bring about their own evil condition thru idle- 
ness and mismanagement. Elsewhere he has an effective essay 
on the pernicious effect of continued, undeserved misfortune 
upon human character. The idea that such adversity is a good 
school for the great mass of humanity he shows is totally erro- 
neous. Such vigorous attacks upon the accepted cant of his 



76 

times show once more Carey's mental independence and clear- 
ness of vision. 

" That the low rate of female wages — is discreditable to 
human nature — pernicious to the best interests of society — 
a fertile source of misery, immorality and profligacy — and 
loudly calls for a remedy "^^ is the theme he recurs to in for- 
cible and at times eloquent terms. As one of a committee of 
seven he made a thorough investigation of the question, the 
results of which are embodied in his " Report on Female 
Wages," March 25, 1829. In the address "To the Ladies 
who have undertaken to establish a House of Industry 
in New York," May 11, 1830, he points out that the house, 
if it pay inadequate wages, would be almost a curse rather 
than a blessing. The "Address submitted for consideration 
to, and adopted by the Board of Managers of the Impartial 
Humane Society of Baltimore," May 15, 1830, is a contribu- 
tion to the same subject. Is it not significant that organiza- 
tions in these two cities should be seeking his aid? The 
Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor was formed 
upon the plan Carey suggested, and began its work in Phila- 
delphia on October i, 1829. The influence Carey exerted in 
arousing the pity of the charitably inclined and in opening the 
eyes of the ignorant is not easily overestimated. 

While Carey was thus engaged in relieving suffering at 
home, he had energy and sympathy enough to follow with deep 
attention a great drama then being enacted in southeastern 
Europe — the Greek Revolution. Edward Everett, the rep- 
resentative of Massachusetts in the lower house of Congress, 
writing from Washington, December 7, 1826, to Carey, at 
that time head of a committee formed for the relief of the 
Greeks, recommends that provisions be sent to the famine- 
stricken people then waging, against Turkey, a war for free- 
dom that should have aroused the armed interference of 
Europe, but that seems to have excited small official attention 

^Public Charities in Philadelphia, republished in Miscellaneous Essays, 
Philadelphia, 1830, p. 203. This volume (xii + 472, 80) contains a wide 
variety of the essays of Carey, and is the best single publication for obtain- 
ing a glimpse of the multifold activities and catholic tastes of the author. 



77 

from any government. Four days after the receipt of this 
letter, Carey, as chairman, issued an eloquent appeal to the 
public " in the hope of awaking the slumbering sympathies of 
this great and rising empire in favor of one of the most inter- 
esting nations that ever existed — a nation whose struggles for 
everything dear and sacred to human nature, under almost 
every possible disadvantage, has never been exceeded, and but 
rarely equalled, for the most inflexible devotion to country, 
and the most heroic valour. The annals of the world, since 
ruthless warfare began to devour the human race, presents 
nothing of patriotism and bravery more honourable to our 
nature than the defense of Missolonghi."^^ 

Since it seemed impossible to secure armed intervention by 
the government, Carey devoted all his energies to raising 
funds for the relief of the wounded and the helpless non- 
combatants. In The Case of the Greeks, he dwells upon the 
unhappy fate which awaits the helpless women when taken 
captive; he compares our Revolution with that which the 
Greeks were waging — the provocation to resistance so infi- 
nitely less, the aid afforded the Greeks so strikingly in contrast 
to that we received, and the results of a failure so appallingly 
more tragic. One of his most eloquent appeals was issued 
without the knowledge of the committee. Of this action Carey 
writes a defense characteristically free and determined. 

" If, however, ' offences must come,' in the discharge of 
duty, I cannot, will not shrink from its performance on that 
account. I unhesitatingly steered that course at an earlier 
period of life, when I held my fortunes and the support of 
a numerous family by the very frail tenure of public opinion, 
almost as fickle as the wind itself; and it would be extra- 
ordinary and inconsistent, indeed, to change the system, in 
my present circumstances, with little to hope or fear from 
mankind — and having, moreover, arrived at that advanced 
stage of existence, which nearly touches the goal which sepa- 
rates time from eternity."^'^ 

Other activities of Carey which show him more or less as a 
philanthropist may be briefly noticed here. In January, 1827, 

^ The Case of the Greeks, in Miscellaneous Essays, p. 298. 
" Ibid., p. 305-6. 



78 

he tried to secure a change in the system whereby regiments 
of artillery were periodically shifted from one part of the 
country to another. The next year he addressed a strong 
appeal to Congress to pension the needy soldiers — especially 
the officers — of the Revolution, or to make them some financial 
remuneration for losses which many of them had incurred. 
He attacked the race question in September, 1829.^^ Argu- 
ing from statistics, he showed that by the year 1870 the 
negroes in many of the southern states would exceed the num- 
ber of whites, a truly appalling condition, he thinks. Some two 
years before, Carey had written two pamphlets^^ on emanci- 
pation, in which, however, he arrived at no very definite con- 
clusions. Forcible emancipation seemed to him too absurd to 
be discussed. He turned then later to Liberia, involved in 
formidable difficulties tho it was, as the solution of the problem. 
In 1827 Carey was led to advocate the establishment of 
infant schools or kindergartens, rather as a philanthropic 
work than as an educational venture. Such schools, by re- 
lieving the working woman from household cares, would, his 
idea was, enable her to work more effectively for support. 
One other item which should not be omitted is that Carey 
in 1796 established the first Sunday-school society. 

''^African Colonization, in Miscellaneous Essays, pp. 214—18. 
^Emancipation of the Slaves in the United States, in Miscellaneous 
Essays, pp. 2:' 2-32. 



CHAPTER V 

The Struggle of American Literature against the 
Exploitation of Foreign Authors by American 

Publishers 

"Longman & Co. April 15th, 1817. 

"... We are very desirous to make some arrangement by 
which we should receive such new works that come out as may 
be likely to bear publication in this Country. If you can make 
any such arrangements for us we will allow Two hundred & 
fifty dollars per annum, provided the person will forward them 
per first vessel from London or Liverpool in order that we 
may receive them first. . . . Our booksellers are so very active 
that it would require very considerable attention to forward 
them by first and fastest sailing vessels. We should wish to 
receive every new work of popularity and particularly those 
of Miss Porter, Lord Byron, Miss Edgeworth, W. Scott, Leigh 
Hunt, Author of Waverley, Moore, Miss Burney, Mrs. Taylor, 
Lady Morgan, Dugald Stuart, etc., etc. We are particularly 
desirous to receive Mcintosh's Great Britain, Vol. I as soon 
as out. In short we should wish the person who might under- 
take it, to use his judgment in selecting for us every work at 
all likely to bear republication — New Voyages and Travels of 
merit are also requested." 

The significance of the paragraph quoted above is not easily 
overestimated; for if it be the first of its character, and, so 
far as I can find, it is, it indicates the genesis of an influence 
that was to contribute very largely to the development of the 
short story in America, to the obscuration of the American 
playwright for almost three-quarters of a century, to the rise 
of the American magazine, and to the struggle of the Amer- 
ican novelist against strong odds until 1891. The present study 
is necessarily but a sketch of the beginnings of that influence. 

We have seen in Chapter IV that an exchange with Ger- 
many was formed as early as 1793, but it was largely barren 
in its results. American authors had little to fear from direct 

79 



80 

German competition, but they did have much to fear from 
German literature in an English dress. Mr. Wilkins, in his 
admirable monograph, German Literature in America (1762- 
1827), has found one hundred and eighty-seven issues of Ger- 
man productions from American presses ; but a glance at his 
list shows that fully nine-tenth are printed from English trans- 
lations. It is to be noted, however, that few were printed 
more than once, and very probably the editions were small. 
There were six editions of The Sorrows of Werther, it is true, 
but compared with its severity in Europe our attack of Werther- 
fever was slight indeed. Kotzebue, moreover, whose name 
occurs by far the most often, appealed to only a limited class 
— ^the lovers of the drama — and possibly some of the editions 
were printed for stage use only. The competitive effect of 
Spanish literature was almost non-existent. That of France 
directly was very small, altho, especially at a later period, it 
became very powerful thru English translations ; for no history 
of the American theater will be at all complete without a 
consideration of French plays that gained a hearing in America 
with the English stage as a popularizing intermediary. The 
still later popularity of the French novel is of course beyond 
the limits of this discussion. But with English literature of 
every sort at hand, there was no need of a benumbing trans- 
lation or of adaptation from that of another race. 

Before the appearance of Miss Forier's Scottish Chief s there 
was, as already noticed, a very considerable business of repro- 
ducing English classics, which reached this country thru the 
ordinary course of travel or importation. No one thought of 
objecting to these or attempting to exploit them any more than 
a modern publisher would attempt to exploit Robinson Cru- 
soe. The demand for such books, while steady, was limited; 
and when a copy of a new book was brought over there were 
not a dozen publishers ready to bid for it and rush an edition 
thru the press in thirty-six hours. But when, even as early as 
181 1, a dealer at Pittsburg can write in the familiar phrase, 
" new novels are all the rage here now," a new and disastrous 
influence must be taken into consideration; for it was Eng- 
lish novels — those of Miss Edgeworth and Miss Porter — to 



81 

which he referred. Seven years later a Philadelphia corre- 
spondent of Maria Edgeworth could write, " ' Waverley/ 
* Guy Mannering/ etc., have excited as much enthusiasm in 
America as in Europe. Boats are now actually on the lookout 
for ' Rob Roy,' all here are so impatient to get the first sight 
of it."^ In 1820 not a single copy of Ivanhoe could be pro- 
cured for Colonel Campbell^ in all Philadelphia ; tho doubt- 
less the Colonel had only to wait a few days for another huge 
edition. 

It will be recalled that Mrs. Radcliffe and her school were 
very popular in America, but the period of Mrs. Radcliffe's 
activity, 1 789-1 797, did not coincide with that of any Amer- 
ican novelist, or at least retard it. Indeed the effect on Brown 
and, later, on Neal was no doubt beneficial in a positive way, 
in inspiring them to write; just as Cooper was negatively in- 
spired. When however the last two were involved in the 
formidable competition of the early twenties the effect was 
anything but helpful ; and on men of unestablished reputations 
and of lesser genius it must in many cases have been stifling. 
A glance at English literature at about the time when Neal, 
Cooper, Miss Sedgwick, Simms, and others were making their 
first appearance before the American public, and Irving had 
begun to produce with some regularity, shows that the field 
was occupied by Miss Porter, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Austen, 
and Scott. Miss Porter, it might be objected, had published 
nothing very popular since The Scottish Chiefs (1810); but 
the immense and enduring vogue of that novel alone necessi- 
tates that she be taken into account, while the number of calls 
for The Mysteries of Udolpho and Mrs. Roche's Children of 
the Abbey, which I should be inclined to regard as the most 

^ Grace A. Oliver, A Study of Maria Edgeworth, Boston, 1882, p. 315. 

^This was in all probability Colonel Robert Campbell (i 775-1831) who 
was born in Augusta County, Virginia, and served under Christian against 
the Cherokees and at the battle of King's Mountain. He was for many 
years colonel of a regiment and for forty years magistrate of Washington 
County, Virginia. His manuscript diary is interesting to the close student 
of the period, while his account of the battle of King's Mountain (published 
in the Holston Intelligencer in October, 1810) is much quoted in Draper's 
King's Mountain and its Heroes. 

7 



82 

popular British novel in America before Scott, tho diminishing 
was yet large. Against Scott we must match Cooper, if we 
can. Is it possible to say for a moment that the other three 
American novelists should, and did, have the weight with the 
reading public that the three English writers had? 

In poetry, other than dramatic, the competition of the repub- 
lications did not have a very deterrent effect. In the first place 
poetry was not read so much in America from 1787 to 1823 as 
literary historians are inclined to believe. The number of old 
copies of poetical works surviving from this period seems to 
have unduly impressed them, while the scarcity of novels has 
too often been accounted for upon the hypothesis that they had 
little vogue. But when we reflect that even now beautiful pre- 
sentation copies of poems lie for months on our tables without 
the symmetry of their outlines being marred, while the family 
and their friends have dog-eared the latest novel in two weeks, 
we may be sure that the novel of one hundred years ago was 
often worn out and went to kindle the fire, while the poem was 
preserved for posterity. November 6, 1818, Carey writes to 
Philip Freneau that the last edition of his poems, which con- 
sisted of only 1000 copies, was about exhausted after nine 
years. " The demand here has ceased." Doubtless other pub- 
lishers were writing similar letters. An example, taken at 
random, of the amount of poetry the people were actually de- 
manding about 1 81 2, may be found in an order from Reading, 
Pennsylvania, October 17, 1812: Out of eighty-one titles, four 
belong to poetry: i Goldsmith's and Collins' Poems ($0.75); 
I Marmion ($1.25) ; i Lay of the Last Minstrel ($1.00) ; i 
Lady of the Lake ($1.00). The total amounts to $188.60. The 
proportion holds thru hundreds of bills of a representative 
dealer whose business was too general and too extended merely 
to reflect any one class or any one section. Before Mrs. Rad- 
cliffe, the proportion of poetry is a little larger. ( Ossian's Poems, 
it might be noticed, have a large run as late as 1800) ; in 1823, 
it is smaller. It is, however, to the credit of America that the 
Lyrical Ballads, which at first fell dead in England, were re- 
published, in 1802, in Philadelphia, and became immediately 
popular. But it would be hardly possible to flood the market 



83 

with poetry. A NeaP or a Dumas may furnish reading for a 
lifetime, but even a Lope de Vega has his limits.* 

As observed above, our earliest novelist of genius suffered 
little from the competition of his British contemporaries. The 
reasons are apparent. The eighteenth century English classics 
so often republished lacked the popular appeal of newness, and 
while the demand was steady it was not monopolistic. Ameri- 
can publishers were in Brown's time not quite numerous 
enough even fully to supply the market without importing, so 
that competition between them was never serious. The last 
and most important reason is to be found in the limited amount 
of fiction which was then being produced in England. Brown's 
productive period as a novelist, it will be remembered, ended in 
1801. By this date Mrs. Radcliffe, Mrs. Roche, and Monk 
Lewis were in the field (Miss Edgeworth was not popular till 

^ " He boasted that within twelve years he had written enough to fill fifty- 
five duodecimo volumes." William P. Trent, A History of American Litera- 
ture, New York, 1903, p. 251. 

* Not only was Freneau neglected at this period but our first authentic 
poet, Byrant himself, was slow to obtain an audience. " Of the 1821 edition 
of his poems," writes Mr. Sturges, " 750 copies were printed and only 270 
sold; a profit of $15.00, minus eight cents, for five years' sale." {The 
Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant, New York, 1908, p. xlvi.) The 
contents of this volume should have indicated to every true lover of poetry 
that no mere rhymster was among them, for it included among others, 
" The Ages," " To a Waterfowl," " The Yellow Violet," " Green River," and 
" Thanatopsis." It is not until eleven years later (1832) that Bryant under- 
takes another volume, and practically all, if not all, the poems included in 
this edition had been tested through the medium of the magazines. It is 
interesting to note in connection with this volume that it is only through 
the good offices of Irving who " edits " it that Bryant secures its publication 
in London, and then only by an obscure publisher. (Ibid., pp. xxiii— xxiv.) 
The popularity of Trumbull's McFingal (1776-84) is well established. This 
may be accounted for, in part, not by a love of poetry per se, but by its 
peculiarly opportune appeal to the revolutionary spirit of the times. Were 
more copies of Butler the poet sold than of Butler the Cavalier ; of Trumbull 
the poet than of Trumbull the revolutionist; of Bryant the poet than of 
Bryant the publicist? Another fairly well read poet of this period is Joel 
Barlow, whose Vision of Columbus had readers estimated at about five 
thousand, American, British, and French — surely no enormous popularity. 
The vogue of the poetic classics of Great Britain has already been touched 
upon at page 31, 



84 

much later). Lewis, it seems, was not widely read. Mrs. Rad- 
cliffe had achieved great popularity thru the Mysteries of 
Udolpho; but while there was some demand for the Sicilian 
Romance and The Romance of the Forest, it was never very 
great, and the average reader then, as now, was no doubt 
inclined to regard her as largely a writer of one work. Mrs. 
Roche was eminently so. In the limited output of these writers 
lay the salvation of the American novelist of that time. When 
Scott appeared one immensely popular novel followed another 
in quick succession. The American public after devouring the 
latest looked eagerly for the next. Hardly had Scott ceased to 
produce when Dickens, ably seconded by Marryat, began a 
series equally popular; and, when Marryat fell out, Benjamin 
Disraeli was ready to fill the gap. From Waverley in 1814, to 
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1870, the year that did not 
produce at least one highly popular British novel was a barren 
period. Against this continuous stream the American novelist 
was compelled to wage a bitter struggle. 

It was probably the popularity of Miss Edgeworth's novels 
that first caused our publishers to see the possibilities of the 
exploitation of British authors, but not until Scott appeared 
was it systematically done. The letter quoted at the beginning 
of the chapter seems to have been the first step in the move- 
ment ; but other publishers were soon in the field, and by about 
1820 the competition between them was as keen as anything 
in modern business life, and the happy, golden age described^ 
by Noah Webster in 1791 was over. Longman & Company 
referred the letter to Mr. John Miller of Henrietta Street, a 
dealer, and publisher in a small way, who until 1861, repre- 
sented Lea & Blanchard, successors, thru several firms, of 
Mathew Carey. A few of the other largest American firms 
also secured agents. 

The intensity of the competition and the methods of meeting 
it may be judged by the following letter. 

" Mr. John Miller, June 17th, 1823. 

" We have rec'd ' Quentin Durward ' most handsomely and 

' See Appendix VII. The book in question is Webster's Grammatical 
Institute, which included his truly remarkably popular Speller. 



85 

have the Game completely in our own hands this time. In 28 
hours after receiving it, we had 1500 copies sent off or ready 
to go, and the whole Edition is now nearly distributed. In two 
days we shall publish it here and in New York and the Pirates 
may print it as soon as they please. The opposition Edition 
will be out in about 48 hours after they have one of our Copies 
but we shall have complete and entire possession of every 
market in the Country for a short time. Independently of 
profit, it is in the highest degree gratifying to be able to manage 
the matter in our own way without fear of interference. When 
we rec'd the Vol. wanting the few last pages, we were vexed to 
think that a long passage might keep us out of them so long 
that we might lose all the advantage already gained, but the 
Mail of next morning put us in the best of humor by bringing 
the remaining pages. Could not Messrs. Constable & Co. fur- 
nish us a manuscript Copy of the last few pages, so as not to 
be obliged to wait until the whole is at press? It frequently 
happens that we are 70 or 80 days without intelligence from 
England. One day will bring a vessel in 60 days, next day in 
50 and the following day one in 40 or 35 so that our 15 or 20 
days are completely lost to us. We are very desirous of taking 
every precaution against losing the advantage for which we pay 
so heavily, and which is lost unless we have a few days start 
as we cannot bring the book into the Market so soon as the 
opposition. They publish as soon as they can have ten Copies 
from the press while we cannot until we have at least 2000 or 
2500. They print for their own stores. We do it for the 
supply of a whole country, and we must send off to our corres- 
pondents as soon as we publish here. You will please to take 
all these matters into consideration and make the best arrange- 
ments in your power for us. The transmission of the sheets 
direct from Edinburg to Liverpool is a great improvement as 
it must save much time. In future request C. &. Co. to make 
the Bundles as before requested. Part i. No i, 2 and 3 and so 
on in order to prevent a repetition of the former unlucky blun- 
der. We regret that you must have been put to inconvenience 
from the delay of remittances but the work came out so 
rapidly that it was impossible for us to place funds there in 
time. In general at least three or four months elapse between 
the receipt of the first and last parts thus affording time to 
remit after leaving off the work. Could you not arrange with 
them to pay in 60 days after the work is completed? You 
would thus be certain of having money in time. You may rely 
upon having the Amt. always in future as soon as we are 
advised that we are to have the work. We hope soon to hear 
from you with the ist Vol. of the next work." 



86 

Signs of really acute competition for the latest English novel 
first begin to appear in the early part of 1820. In that year 
Wells & Lilly of Boston insert their name as joint publishers 
with Carey & Son of Ivanhoe, tho it appears they did not have 
a single copy in print. Calls for immediate orders of The 
Monastery appear. On October 9, L. & F. Lockwood of New 
York write: 

" We should feel it a great favor if you would send us of the 
first going off Fifty copies at least of the Abbott. Would it 
not be well to delay the publication for a day or two so that 
they may come together, as the Printers here stand ready to 
lay hold of the first copy you send. 

" Having been disappointed in the Monastery we beg you to 
give us a fair chance this time." 

When we reflect that all three of these novels were first pub- 
lished in 1820, their vogue and the activity of the publishers 
become apparent. On August 14, 1821, Wells & Lilly com- 
plain that Carey & Son are printing Lady Morgan's Italy after 
they had said that they would not do so. Van Winkle of 
New York, they continue, is also issuing an edition. Miller 
felicitates himself in 1822 that he has at least three days start 
of the other American agents in forwarding a copy of Horace 
Walpole's Memoirs of the last ten years of George the Second. 
On February 5, 1822 Carey & Sons write to the Secretary of 
the Treasury, complaining that it takes too long for new books 
to get thru the Custom House at New York, where they are 
shipped because there are more vessels entering at that port; 
and that they are thus delayed in getting to press. It is, they 
write, a very serious matter to lose merely the time necessary 
for the printers' copy to come from New York and the finished 
edition to be returned there, for in that short interval some 
other vessel might bring a copy. Here we have in a few lines 
a powerful factor in the rising supremacy of New York as a 
publishing center, at this time® the equal of Philadelphia, soon 
to outstrip it. Ten days after the last letter, Collins & Co. 

' It is obviously impossible to fix any definite date. Some authorities 
place it as early as 181 o. To the enterprise and aggressiveness of Harper 
& Brothers, who became prominent about 181 7, more than to any other 
firm is the result due. The year 1810 seems entirely too early. 



87 

reply to a protest : *' We believe it has been the uniform practice 
both here and in Boston to print in each place editions of 
Scott's novels as soon as received, on the ground that the 
demand w^as so great that it might be done without infringing 
the customary rights in such cases." On July 14, 1822, Carey 
& Sons v^^rite to Miller, "We have now 9 printing offices em- 
ployed to get it (Fortunes of Nigel) out by to-morrow, Satur- 
day, morning, and an Edit, is printing in New York to be 
published on Monday." In 1825 Carey & Lea received ad- 
vance copies of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth cantos of 
Don Juan. It was immediately given out to about thirty com- 
positors, and in thirty-six hours an American edition was on 
sale. Indeed so intense became the desire to be the first to get 
copies of Scott's novels for reprinting that it appears that some 
one (not necessarily an American) stole the " first copies of the 
Waverley novels " from the office of Constable and Company.'' 
They accused Carey & Sons, but withdrew the charge in the 
next letter. 

Such details might be accumulated for pages. Nor need it 
be thought that American publishers alone were eager to exploit 
the work of others : the crime was world wide. Ebeling, as 
already noticed, had written in 1793 that unauthorized trans- 
lations would undersell American imports in Germany. John 
Souter, No. 73, St. Paul's Churchyard, was agent for American 
publications in England, Ireland, and Scotland; Miller was, 
in addition to acting as agent for Carey, also on the lookout 
for American works to republish himself or to sell to others. 
" I am reprinting," he writes on October 30, 1822, " the New 
England Tale and expect good sales for it; Murray reprints 
the Pioneers."^ The Pioneers was first published in America 
on February i, 1823, so that it seems to have been first issued 
in England.^ Other works of Cooper appeared in England in 

'' See Appendix VIII. 

' Campbell, according to this letter from Miller, expressed to him a desire 
to have his own biography, which was then in preparation, first published in 
America. 

^ The Pioneers was to have been brought out as early as the fall of 1822, 
but the yellow fever epidemic that summer paralyzed the printing business 
in New York. Extracts had been previously published in newspapers, and 



88 

the same year as in America, as did also those of Irving; and 
they may have been issued there first/*^ for so bad were condi- 
tions that American authors were often forced to adopt this 
course.^^ 

The effect of such competition upon publishers as well as 
authors, both British and American, was disastrous, especially 
so upon American publishers. The publication of popular 
works from across the ocean became a gamble in which the 
winnings went to the largest and best organized firm — when 
the wind and waves favored. The smaller firms suffered 
morally as well as financially: morally in that they so often 
succumbed to the temptation to republish works to which some 
other publisher had obtained a moral, tho not a legal, right by 
a partially adequate payment to the foreign proprietor; finan- 
cially, because if they refused to offer the " best seller " many 
of their customers ceased to patronize them. For a firm at 
Boston, let us say, to order from Philadelphia would not 
answer, for twelve days were thus lost. Publishers, even the 
largest, must quite frequently have found that an edition of 
some work only fairly popular, issued a little too late, must be 
put upon an already glutted market. Works of special nature 
were therefore seldom reprinted, for the financial loss in case 
of a rival edition was very serious. Distrust and jealousy 
sprang up on every side. Such conditions prevalent in America 
must have been in a lesser measure reflected in England. 

The effect upon American authors was unfortunate in the 
extreme. None of them, not even Irving and Cooper, was 
ever so popular for a continuous period as Scott, Byron and 
Dickens ; so that had it been possible to sell their books at the 
same price the sales would have been smaller. But the neces- 

the book was awaited with great impatience. By noon on Februrary i, 
3500 copies had been sold. (Thomas R. Lounsbury, James Fenimore 
Cooper, Boston, 1883, VV- 40-41.) Compare also Bryant page 83, note. 

^° " Authors of established reputation " writes Mr. Henry C, Lea, " who 
could arrange in advance with English publishers would do it so as to 
obtain copyright by first publication there." 

" " Address of certain authors of Great Britain to the House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United States, in Congress assembled." Reprinted in The 
Congressional Record, Washington 1888, Vol. XIX, p. 3241. 



89 

sity of paying the author a fair royalty or of buying his copy- 
right made the price of his works considerably higher than 
those of the British writer to whom no adequate returns could 
be made by the most conscientious publisher, because any 
amount advanced secured merely a few hours' start of the 
pirates and the goodwill of a limited number of the public. 
The latter often refused to pay a high price for even the 
American book that they knew to be good, when they could 
secure cheaper a popular English book. As a result, the sales 
of American works and the profits of the writer were appre- 
ciably decreased. Irving still further embarrassed his publish- 
ers by continually demanding fine editions. In the case of an 
author who, like Cooper, made many failures, the public often 
hesitated to buy and the publishers to publish. The $2,600 
which the firm inform Cooper, November 12, 1836, they have 
lost on The Monikins was, however, no doubt repaid several 
times over by Pickwick Papers and Sketches by Boz, which 
had also first appeared in 1836.^^ Of Mercedes of Castile 
(1840) only 1700 copies out of 4000 had sold by February 10, 
1841. The publishers suggest that the author should remit a 
portion of the copy money, " owing to the fact that we stated 
to you our disappointment in the character of the work before 
publication, it being different to what you stated previously to 
finishing it." The reply seems to have been cutting. Few but 
the largest firms could allow personal friendship or patriotism 
to influence them in the slightest degree. 

The immediate price of American books was decreased, but 
without proportionately increasing the sales. 

"J. Fenimore Cooper, Esq. Nov. 13, 1834. 

"... We wish you to remark that we have been compelled 
to sell Books cheaper than we did formerly. When your early 
works were published, English novels retailed for $1.50 and 
American could be sold at $2. Now the other retails at $1. 
and the other at about $1.50 or less. It is true that the nominal 
wholesale price is still $1.50, but it is necessary to make dis- 
counts from that price in proportion to the quantity purchased. 
We cannot estimate the product at more than $1.30 per copy." 

" The rival firm of Carey and Hart published Bulwer's Rienzi and Mar- 
ryat's Mr. Midshipman Easy in the same year. 



90 

Meanwhile other prominent Americans were having their 
troubles also. In 1836 Irving was offered $4000 for the right 
of printing 5000 copies of Astoria, but he was refused the fine 
edition upon which his heart was set.^^ 

In 1 841 and 1842 a severe business depression marked by the 
failure of the United States Bank, by the refusal of Pennsyl- 
vania and Maryland to pay interest due on their state debts, 
and by Dorr's Rebellion, swept over the country. Typical of 
this period are the following letters: 

" Washington Irving Esq March 2 1841. 

"We have yours of the 25th ulto. in relation to the volume 
you are preparing.^* The times are most sadly against the 
publication of any work requiring even a fair ed. 

" We are issuing chiefly to keep ourselves before the world & 
few books we now print exceed 500 copies for an edition. 

We shd be pleased to give the volume to the public. The 
great quantities however that formerly sold when the South & 
S. West were opened, cannot now be managed. Never the less 
we think we can sell as many as any other house & the 
best shall be done. There must be something very attractive 
in the life of a girl of sixteen that could move you, & we shd 
rely more on your own opinion of the work than what we can 
now suppose would be attractive to the many, in one who died 

^ Irving seems to have been rather indolent as well as a lover of fine 
things; for Mahomet, which he had promised for 1839, was not published 
until 1850 ; tho his publishers repeatedly urge him to get it ready as soon 
as possible. Tales, promised in 1842, is probably Wolfert's Roost, 1855. 

" The volume in question is the Poetic Remains of Margaret Miller 
Davidson (Mar. 26, 1823-Nov. 25, 1838) which the firm (Lea & Blanchard) 
published in 1841. Miss Davidson passed an early childhood of remarkable 
promise. When hardly more than six years of age she wrote in two days, 
The Tragedy of Alethia. Lenore, the longest of her poems, contains pas- 
sages of considerable beauty. Her numerous shorter poems are instinct 
with a devotional ardour of rare quality. The poems of her scarcely less 
gifted sister (Lucretia Maria Davidson 1808-1825) seem to have been in- 
cluded in this volume, which had a biography of the younger sister by 
Irving. Miss Sedgwick wrote a memoir of the elder sister which appeared 
in Sparks' American Biography. The poems of both sisters were published 
in one volume {Poetical Remains) at Boston in 1859. Amir Khan and other 
Poems by Lucretia Maria Davidson, published, with a sketch of her life by 
S. F. B. Morse, in 1829, is the "volume of poems" alluded to just below. 
Both sisters were indeed in their rare promise " of those that died before 
the dawn." 



91 

so young. A volume of Poems by her sister was published 
some time since but its sale was not we believe very extensive. 
All this however, is not to the point. 

"We think it would be better to print an edition of 2500 
copies for a first ed for which we could allow twenty two cents 
per copy payable at 9 mos from publication & if it was suffi- 
ciently attractive could be stereotyped or set up again for 
2000 copies at same price per copy. Would this not be your 
best course? It may be that the work may prove more at- 
tractive than we suppose & many thousands may be wanted. 
We would of course push it with our best efforts. 

"You may remember that you had 30 cts for the Crayon 
Miscellany, but you stereotyped that. In the present case you 
require the composition to be paged by us, on the 2500 which 
would be about the difference. There is another consideration 
— we now give larger discounts to the trade than we did then. 

"You will we think agree with us about the number of 
copies proposed to be first printed when we inform you that 
the first sale of vol 3 Crayon Miscellany did not exceed 2500 
copies. 

" Pray give our views of the matter your consideration & 
let us have the pleasure of hearing soon from you/' 

"Washington Irving Esq Mar 3 1842 

" Yours of the 26th inst. did not reach us until the evening 
of the 1st inst. We have given much consideration to the 
matter and have to say that It would give us great pleasure to 
be able to meet your wishes at once, but the country is in such 
a condition, that we wld not be justified now in making such an 
operation as you propose. In the present and paralyzed state 
of the currency, we do not believe that a new & necessarily 
expensive edition would be successful. It would require a very 
large expenditure & consequently large receipts — the latter 
could scarcely be hoped for in the present distressed state of 
almost every portion of the country. Hereafter it may answer. 

" For the present we should prefer to continue our arrange- 
ment for two years at one thousand dollars per annum & in- 
clude the right to publish Astoria, Miscellany, etc in it, Or if 
you wish to publish * Mahomet ' this spring & the two volumes 
of Tales, mentioned in your letter, to follow by June or July — 
these might be included in the two years right with the others, 
say the whole for five thousand dollars for the two years com- 
mencing at the time of publication of the last — we to reserve 
the right at the end of that period to publish a new edition of 
your works as you propose with the other vols selected, say 
for five or more years at the price of $2500 per annum. . . ." 



92 

Far more serious was the lot of Poe during this period of 

intense business depression. 

" Edgar A. Poe, Aug. i6, 1841. 

" We have yrs of the 13th inst. in which you are kind enough 
to offer us a * new collection of prose Tales.' 

" In answer we very much regret to say that the state of 
affairs is such as to give very little encouragement to new un- 
dertakings. As yet we have not got through the edition of the 
other work and up to this time it has not returned to us the 
expense of its publication. We assure you that we regret this 
on your account as well as our own — as it would give us great 
pleasure to promote your views in relation to publication."^^ 

Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1839)^^ is the "other 
work." The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe ("The Mur- 
ders in the Rue Morgue," and " The Man that was Used up ") 
was published at Philadelphia in 1843. I^ 1^45 Wiley and 
Putnam of New York issued Tales by Edgar A. Poe. It seems 
impossible to determine which one of these, if either, is the 
" new collection." In any case, owing to the English reprint, 
Poe was not receiving any adequate returns for his work ; and 
it may be that such a refusal to publish his tales had a worse 
effect upon his sensitive nature than the loss of the money they 
might have brought. 

Four months later another genius receives bad news : 

^° This letter has been published by George E, Woodberry in his Edgar 
Allen Poe, Boston, 1885, p. 165. A previous letter to Poe (not found, see 
Woodberry, p. 164) had given the title as follows "some such title as this: 
— The Prose Tales of Edgar A. Poe, including ' The Murders in the Rue 
Morgue,' the 'Descent into the Maelstrom,' and all his later pieces, with a 
second edition of the Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque. 

" The later pieces will be eight in number, making the entire collection 
thirty-three which would occupy two thick volumes." All profits were to 
go to the firm (as allowed before 1839 on Tales) and twenty copies only 
were to be given to Poe. When the work was nearly ready, he tried to get 
better terms, but the firm (Lea and Blanchard) refused and asked him to 
secure another publisher. {Ibid., pp. 1 16-17.) The work was published in 
two volumes in 1839 or 1840. 

" Harrison {The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, New York, 1902, 
Vol. xvi, p. 364) says 1840. The edition printed of the Tales of the Gro- 
tesque and Arabesque consisted of 750 copies only, says Mr. Henry C. Lea. 



93 

"Mr. W. Gilmore Simms, Dec. i6, 1841. 

" ' Confession ' is a total failure, the * Kinsman ' will do bet- 
ter. We do not see much hope in the future for the American 
writer in light literature — as a matter of profit it might be 
abandoned. 

" The channel seems to be glutted with periodical literature 
particularly the mammoth Weeklies — besides which we go into 
market for $1.50 a copy agt English reprints at 90c." . . . 

Simms seems not to have followed the advice, tho possibly 
it had something to do with the researches in biography that 
punctuate the long series of novels that follow. Irving, Cooper, 
Poe, Simms, — if these four men were so harassed and, in one 
case at least, forced from the market, what must have hap- 
pened to the writer of ordinary talents? 

If the effect of competition on American authors was so 
dire it was also not inconsiderable on those of Great Britain — 
not so much by direct competition, for Irving and Cooper were 
the only Americans continuously read at this period, but by 
the indirect loss of profit and by the annoyance caused by 
garbled versions. Mrs. Radcliffe probably received nothing 
for her works. It has been conjectured that Scott's life would 
have been prolonged had an international copyright prevailed, 
so that full returns could have been made for works published 
in America.^^ The conscientious American publisher soon be- 
came accustomed to gauging values. Miller is instructed, in 
1836, that except James, DTsraeli, Miss Edgeworth, and Mar- 
ryat, with whom special terms must be made, no one will bear 
over five pounds. Lady Morgan, Hook, Mrs. Hall, Chamier, 
Horace Smith, Hood, the Author of Godolphin, Trevelyan, 
Grattan and the Countess of Blessington would bear that sum 
but not over it. In 1834 Miller is to offer Miss Edgeworth 
£25 to £40 for Taking for Granted (evidently Helen) ; in 1836, 
Bulwer £125 (but there was trouble brewing between Bulwer 

" See " Address of certain authors of Great Britain to the House of 
Representatives of the United States, in Congress Assembled." Reprinted 
in Congressional Record, Washington, 1888, Vol. XIX, p. 3241. One likes 
to think in this connection of the struggling and yet unrecognized Carlyle 
as aided by Emerson, who undertook the publication, at his own risk, of 
Sartor Resartus and sent the proceeds to the author. 



94 

and Harpers), and James £50 to i6o for their next work. Four 
years later Dickens commands ^150 to £225. Irving, we have 
noticed, is offered in 1842 $25(X) per annum for the right of 
publishing his collected works for the next five years. By that 
year he has written twelve of his seventeen works. 

In 1837 Carey & Co. had explained to Dickens why they 
could not afford to give more for his works, which naturally 
were not then worth so much as later. 

" Mr. Saml. Dickens, June 14, 1837. 

" On the first appearance of the Pick Wick Papers we under- 
took their publication in this country and have to this time 
pubd. 12 parts. 

" Ere this you would have heard from us but this work with 
others had to succumb with the times^* and it was doubtful if 
we would have been paid for more had we published them. 
But we conclude to venture to press with a volume or so and 
shall continue the papers. 

" Under the hope that business will improve and the sales of 
the work extend, we have thought of the author and have re- 
quested our agent, Mr. John Miller, to furnish you with a 
draft on W. & I. Brown & Co., Liverpool, for £25 at 4 mos. 
which we beg you will accept not as a compensation, but as a 
memento of the fact that unsolicited a bookseller has sent an 
author, if not money, at least a fair representative of it. The 
amt. is small, and you can well understand why it is not more 
when we state that we shall sell the whole 12 pts., done up in 
3 vols., to the trade for about five shillings net : After paying 
the cost of making this does not leave much for the Bookseller 
or Author. The novels that are published in England in 3 
vols, are here printed in two and sold to the Trade for Three 
shillings per copv and the edition of 1000 copies, say such as 
Jack Brag, Rory O'More^^ etc. at such prices but little is made 
of them and it is but seldom that they will admit of any pay- 
ment to authors, occasionally when a first edition will admit 
of a large impression this can be done but exceptions to that 
quantity are few. 

" It may not be amiss to refer to the panic of this year, the Panic of 
1837, which was caused by over speculation in land and by the wild cat 
banks, banks organized in the various parts of the country, and especially 
in the Western States, before the enactment of a national banking law. 

^^ Jack Brag by Theodore Hook appeared in England in 1837, and Rory 
O'More (the novel, not the ballad, which was published in 1826) by Samuel 
Lover in the same year. 



95 

"While on the subject of Novels we will advert to one an- 
nounced by you, ' Barnaby Rudge.' Our agent may have made 
some arrangement for this work with you or your publisher, 
should he not, he will be pleased to communicate with you on 
the subject for early sheets and we trust that he may make 
some arrangement that will be to your advantage and that will 
open a door for further communications." 

To this Dickens replied: 

"48 Doughty Street Mecklenburgh Square, London. 

" October 26, 1837 
" Gentlemen: — 

" I owe you an apology for not having returned an earlier 
reply to your obliging letter. I was not in London when it 
arrived, and have been so much engaged since my return that 
for a short time it escaped my recollection. 

" I need scarcely say that it affords me great pleasure to 
hear of the popularity of the Pickwick Papers in America — a 
country in which in common with most Englishmen, I take a 
high interest, and with which I hope one day to become better 
acquainted. 

" I should not feel under the circumstances, quite at ease in 
drawing upon you for the amount you so liberally request me 
to consider you my debtors in, but I shall have very great 
pleasure in receiving from you an American copy of the Work, 
which coupled with your very handsome letter, I shall consider 
a sufficient acknowledgment of the American sale. 

" The novel Barnaby Rudge of which you speak will not be 
published until late in the Autumn of next year.^" Oliver 
Twist will appear in June next. I shall be very happy to enter 
into any arrangements with you for the transmission of early 
proofs of the latter book if I should hear from you that you 
consider it desirable. 

I am, Gentlemen, 
Very faithfully yours, 
Mess. Carey & Co. Charles Dickens." 

From this attitude of good will towards American publishers, 
Dickens was to depart widely in the next five years f^ for all 
authors, American and British, soon saw that such conditions 
could not endure, and, aided by many of the publishers, they 
began the long and bitter fight for an international copyright 

*• It was not published until 1841. 
^ See Appendix IX. 



96 

law which was not to meet with the slightest success until 1891. 

That these two great nations, Great Britain and America, had 
so long failed to act to their own advantage in protecting such 
an important class as the producers of literature, authors and 
publishers, was not due to any unusual stupidity nor to any 
exceptional meanness on the side of interested parties. The 
evolution of the international copyright, with all of its errors, 
inexcusable to us of the twentieth century, wise in our freedom 
from the pitfalls of the pathfinder, can be paralleled in the 
growth of many of the legal and social codes that hold together, 
more or less inadequately, the jarring interests of discordant 
nations. 

To the bard who sang of the deeds of Beowulfj^^tothemonk 
as he bent over his desk in the Monastery of San Marco and 
copied the vision of his great fellow townsman, or, what is 
more probable, illuminated with loving care the acts of the 
church fathers, a copyright was a thing unknown and unde- 
sired. The one cared little who learned his song; the other 
was only anxious that the miracles of his order should be 
received by men as widely as possible. 

But when Gutenberg invented printing in 145 1, if a mooted 
point may be waived, a new influence had come into literature ; 
and with the greatly increased number of copies of a literary 
work thereby made possible, a new commercial value for author 
and for publisher, was set for literary wares, and a long struggle 
began for legal protection for an output of human energy 
which had scarcely, if at all, been recognized as property before. 

The first evidence of a copyright comes to us in the Renais- 
sance in connection with the spread of the classics. Probably 
the first compiled and carefully edited text to be printed was 
an edition of Cicero's Offices, issued by Fust and Schoffer in 
1465.^^ A rival press issued an edition at a much lower price, 
because upon them had not fallen the expense of preparing a 

^ Mr. Ker seems to think that no bard ever did sing of the deeds of 
Beowulf. (See his The Dark Ages, New York, 1904, pp. 250-1.) 

^ Brander Matthews, " The Evolution of the Copyright," in The Ques- 
tion of Copyright, compiled by George Haven Putnam, New York, 1891, 
p. 14. The article is reprinted from the Political Science Quarterly of 
November, 1890. 



97 

text. Already there were pirates in the publishing world. 
John of Spira was wiser four years later, in 1469, for he 
secured from the Venetian Republic the exclusive right for five 
years to print the epistles of Cicero and of Pliny.^* The first 
recorded case of a copyright given directly to an author is that 
of Peter of Ravenna, who in 149 1 secured the exclusive right 
to put his Phoenix upon the market from Venice.^^ Other 
Italian states followed the leadership of Venice in this matter. 
The earliest protection granted in Germany to a literary work 
was to Conrad Celtes for the work of a nun of the Benedictine 
cloister of Gardersheim, in 1501.^® Luther's translation of the 
Bible was issued at Wittenberg in 1534 under the protection of 
the Elector of Saxony. By the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, there were decrees in many of the German states by which 
protection could be secured. By an enactment at Berlin in 
1794 protection was granted by all German states, except 
Wurtemburg and Mecklenburg, to both German and foreign 
authors whose works were represented at the book fairs of 
Leipzig and Frankfort.^^ True it was not very effective, as 
Schiller and Goethe might well testify, but it established a 
precedent, and seems to be the first real step towards inter- 
national copyright. In France but one edition was at first 
protected by each copyright. 

But the country in which we are most interested for the 
moment is Great Britain. The privilege of exclusive produc- 
tion was first extended in England to Richard Pynson, in 15 18. 
The title page of Pynson's book says that no one else could 
print or import it for two years.^^ But Pynson was the king's 
printer, and similar rights were not extended to an author until 
twelve years later, when they were granted to John Palsgrave, 
on his French grammar, for seven years. In 1553 Wynkyn 

^Ibid., p. 15. 

* R. R. Bowker, Copyright, Its Law and Its Literature, New York, 1886, 
p. 4- 

^ Geo. Haven Putnam, " Literary Property, An Historical Sketch," in 
The Question of Copyright, p. 47. Cf. also Bowker, p. 4. 
" Putnam, p. 48. 

* Matthews, p. 16. 

8 



98 

de Worde obtained protection for his Witinton's Grammar, 
which had been pirated. 

It will be noted that the dates given above fall within the 
days of the Renaissance and of the Reformation, a period of 
great political and religious ferment. Governments, therefore, 
began to exercise restrictive powers over printing, and copy- 
right and censorship became confused. The Stationers' Com- 
pany, chartered in 1556 by Philip and Mary, had for its object 
the prevention of the spread of the Protestant Reformation.^® 
It is not necessary here to enter into the complicated relations 
between governmental censorship and copyright in Great Britain 
from this year until the period, comparatively recent, when 
copyright ceased to be a matter of politics. In spite of the 
exercise of arbitrary power, the struggle was won, or almost 
so, by the time that the American colonies threw off the yoke 
of the mother country. 

The time, then, and the democratic attitude of the people, 
together with a thirst for knowledge and a desire for its encour- 
agement, rendered easy an acknowledgment of literary prop- 
erty within the nation. The first act in the United States was 
passed by Connecticut in January, 1783. Massachusetts fol- 
lowed in March of the same year, Virginia in 1785, and New 
York and New Jersey in 1786.^^ These acts were primarily 
due to the persistency of one man, Noah Webster, and his 
Speller was the first book protected. Webster became a 
familiar figure at state capitols as he passed from state to state 
electioneering for his favorite measure. His work caused sim- 
ilar action to be contemplated by Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina until the necessity of 
state laws was done away with by the national law of May 
31, 1790. But the sentiment which crystallized in this law was 
evoked largely by Webster's personal influence and writings. 

The state legislation enacted before May, 1783, had granted 
a period of twenty-one years, but in May, in response to a 

^ Eaton S. Drone, A Treatise on the Law of Property in Intellectual 
Productions in Great Britain and the United States, Boston, 1879, p. 56. 
But compare page 21, note. 

*» Ibid., p. 89. 



99 

resolution by Madison, Congress in urging copyright upon the 
states named fourteen years as the limit. When the general 
government legislated upon the matter it unfortunately chose 
the shorter term proposed by Madison, but if the author were 
living when the copyright expired it could be renewed for 
fourteen additional years. This was the law until 1831, when 
twenty-eight years were granted with the privilege of renewal 
for fourteen years, if the author, his widow, or his children 
were still living at the expiration of the first term. 

There was at first an attempt to secure a perpetual copy- 
right. It was contended that the man's literary property was 
as entirely his own as the faculties of his mind, and that the 
labor employed in its production was his exclusively. Noah 
Webster, in a letter to Daniel Webster, dated September 30, 
1826, in arguing for perpetual, or at least a greatly extended 
copyright law, says: "If anything can justly give a man an 
exclusive right to the occupancy and enjoyment of a thing it 
must be the fact that he made it. The right of a farmer or 
mechanic to the exclusive enjoyment and right of disposal of 
what he makes or produces is never questioned. What, then, 
can make a difference between the produce oi muscular strength 
and the produce of the intellect ? "^^ Tho Webster's position 
seems logical, the fact remains that most of those countries 
which have experimented with a perpetual copyright — Holland, 
Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Mexico, and some of the South 
American countries, have most usually speedily returned to 
protection for a term of years. There seems to have been an 
underlying feeling that a perpetual copyright would tend to 
build up a literary monopoly in the hands of publishers which, 
because of extortionate prices, would be detrimental to the 
spread of enlightenment in succeeding generations. What the 
real effect would be, whether the law of supply and demand 
would exercise a controlling and leveling power over it, is a 
question that cannot be answered, because there has never been 
any adequate test. Legislation has been influenced, also, by 

^Horace E. Scudder, Noah Webster, Boston, 1882, p. 58. A summary 
of Webster's entire activity in the matter of copyright is given in pages 
52 to 67. 



100 

the possibility that the heirs might possess themselves of a 
copyright in order to suppress a work. The fortunes of 
Calvin's Institutes in the hands of intolerant Catholic heirs 
might be an example. 

It has just been noticed that the first steps toward interna- 
tional copyright were taken by the German states in 1794. 
There are several reasons why such should have been the case, 
but those which most nearly concern the present discussion are 
the facts of a practically similar language and a similar attitude 
towards life among them and a lack of international hostility, 
such as has until recently characterized the attitude of France 
and Great Britain. The first condition makes piracy easy of 
perpetration ; it is not necessary to translate or to adapt to the 
spirit of an alien race. The brotherhood of man has assumed 
a deeper and a fuller meaning since 1794, but even now how 
often does the foreigner receive the full consideration of a 
native ? 

When, in 1837, the first recorded step towards international 
copyright was taken in the United States, both these influ- 
ences were powerfully at work. British literature offered a 
tempting field for exploitation, and our countrymen were, in 
far too many cases, not in any mood to apply the golden rule 
to the country they had twice fought on land and sea. But in 
this year those conditions which have already been described 
forced affairs to a climax. On February 13, 1837, between 
fifty and sixty of the most prominent British authors presented 
a petition to Congress asking for protection.^ The petition 
was presented to the Senate by Henry Clay. It was referred to 
a select committee, consisting of Clay, Preston, Buchanan, 
Webster, and Ewing. Their report — written, perhaps, by their 
chairman. Clay, for the petition was drafted by him — says, 
in part: 

" It being established that literary property is entitled to legal 
protection, it results that this protection ought to be afforded 
wherever the property is situated. A British merchant brings 

^^ Executive Documents of the House of Representatives, Second session 
of the 24th Congress, Washington, 1837, Vol. 4, doc. No. 162. Reprinted 
in the Congressional Record, 50th Congress, ist Session, Washington, 1888, 
Vol. 19, pt. 4, p. 3241. 



101 

or transmits to the United States a bale of merchandise, and 
the moment it comes within the jurisdiction of our laws, they 
throw around it effectual security. But if the work of a British 
author is brought to the United States, it may be appropriated 
by any resident here, and republished without any compensa- 
tion whatever being made to the author. We should all be 
shocked if the law tolerated the least invasion of the rights of 
property in the case of the merchandise, whilst those which 
justly belong to the works of authors are exposed to daily viola- 
tions, without the possibility of their invoking the aid of the 
laws." 

The committee therefore recommended that protection be 
granted to the authors of Great Britain and Ireland and to 
France, countries in which the copyrights of Americans were 
protected at this period. It is but equity, they said farther, that 
it be given to all other countries. The bill was presented in the 
Senate five times. Only one vote was taken, however, and that 
in the year 1840, which resulted in the bill being ordered to lie 
upon the table. 

Between 1837 and 1842 numerous petitions favoring inter- 
national copyright and signed by nearly all prominent British 
and American writers were presented to Congress. In 1838, 
immediately after the passing of the first international copy- 
right act in Great Britain, Lord Palmerston invited the Ameri- 
can government to enter into a copyright agreement between 
the two countries.^^ Two years later, Cornelius Matthews and 
George P. Putnam each issued pamphlets in favor of interna- 
tional copyright. The title of the latter's contribution, which 
appears to be the first published in the United States, is ^« 
Argument in Behalf of International Copyright; in its prepara- 
tion he was aided by Dr. Francis Lieber. In 1843 Putnam 
drafted a memorial which was signed by ninety-seven publish- 
ers and printers and presented to Congress. A pamphlet in 
answer to this was issued at Philadelphia in the same year. Its 
argument was that copyright prevented the adaptation of Eng- 
lish books to American purposes. 

In 1843 too appeared one of the most eloquent of the many 

^' Geo. Haven Putman, " Literary Property, " in The Question of the 
Copyright, New York 1891, p. 96. 



102 

contributions to the discussion, one would fain believe from 
the pen of William Cullen Bryant, under the title of Address 
to the People of the United States in behalf of the American 
Copyright Club, signed by Bryant, Francis L. Hawks, and Cor- 
nelius Matthews. 

" The reading public of the United States," it runs, " — you, 
the people of the country — have had no voice in determining 
what works should be taken and what left, of all those cast 
upon your shores. You have been held in pupilage, and had 
your reading put upon you by the taste, or interest, or rashness, 
of such as took the business of republication in charge. Even 
they have not formed a permanent body, like the booksellers, 
but have sprung up and died off, two or half a dozen a week, 
in every city in the country. Having no settled interest in the 
pursuit, grown to it and fashioned for it by no previous train- 
ing, they have dealt with the vending of books in the veriest 
and sorriest spirit of trading and huckstering. Eager for the 
sale of the hour, calculating on no permanent connection with 
one particular class of the public, they have foisted upon the 
purchasers whatever the counter afforded, crying it up as the 
choicest of the market, ready, the next day, to thrust it out of 
sight for the newcomer of still choicer pretensions. Certain 
books of a noxious character being found to hit the appetite of 
certain readers, others of a broader stamp, in a like view, have 
been produced from foreign tongues, and distributed by the 
thousand and ten thousand. The foreign supply coming short, 
native writers, of an easy conscience, have been put in training, 
to try themselves upon whatever is coarsest and vilest. In the 
general hurly-burly works of this texture have escaped from 
the by-ways and alleys where they were first hatched, and flare, 
in broad-day, in the placards and windows of bookdealers, 
whose sense of propriety could have only faltered in a general 
decay of right opinion among the people at large."^* 

The pamphlet complains bitterly of the attitude of the press, 
which venally writes and publishes misleading criticisms of the 
ephemeral publications of the times. This, they point out, is 
really suicide, for the taste of the people is in danger of being 
so vitiated and so fixed in the channel of the cheap serial 

^ Address to the People of the United States in behalf of the American 
Copyright Club Adopted at New York, October i8, 1843. New York, 1843. 
This is an octavo pamphlet of eighteen pages signed by William Cullen 
Bryant, Francis L. Hawks, and Cornelius Matthews, pp. 9-10. 



103 

adapted publication that the press would eventually languish 
for lack of patronage. The American author, they write, is in 
danger of disappearing, and with him many wholesome aspects 
of our nationality. The ballad singers and men of literature 
in the days of old nerved their countrymen up to deeds of 
moral and physical heroism, but no amount of cheap foreign 
literature will ever inspirit the Americans as Americans to 
light the battles of their country in court and mart, on field 
and flood. Whether or not Bryant wrote the Address, it is 
worthy of notice in passing that until his death he did yeoman 
service in the cause of international copyright, thru the columns 
of the Evening Post; and he thus fixed the policy of this paper, 
which contended for the cause until the victory was gained. 
But he continued his efforts in other ways, for in 1848, in com- 
pany with John Gay, George P. Putnam and others he returned 
to the attack, presenting in this year a petition which never got 
further than the select committee to which it was referred. 
In 1853, to continue this chronicle as briefly as possible, Charles 
Sumner, then Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign 
Affairs, reported to the Senate a treaty which Everett, then 
Secretary of State, had drawn up. It was reported favorably 
by the Committee on Foreign Affairs. While this treaty was 
before Congress, five publishing houses of New York addressed 
a letter to Everett suggesting an agreement practically identical 
with the one now in force. ^^ In 1858 an International Copy- 
right Bill was introduced by Edward Jay Morris of Pennsyl- 
vania, but no notice was taken of it. 

Bryant once more entered the arena in 1868, when there was 
issued a circular letter. Justice to Authors and Artists, calling 
for a meeting to organize an international copyright associa- 
tion. A meeting was held on April 9, at which he presided. 
The Copyright Association for the Protection and Advance- 
ment of Literature and Art was organized, with Bryant as 
president, and E. C. Stedman as secretary. The object of the 
Association was " to promote the enactment of a just and 
suitable international copyright law for the benefit of authors 

" Geo. Haven Putnam, " Literary Property " in The Question of Copy- 
right, New York, 1891, p. 67. 



104 

and artists in all parts of the world." One hundred and fifty- 
three signatures were secured, one hundred and one were au- 
thors, and nineteen were publishers.^^ 

In 1872 the new Library Committee asked all those interested 
in the matter to assist in framing a bill. A meeting of pub- 
lishers was held in New York. But even yet, in spite of thirty- 
seven years of agitation, the friends of international copyright 
seemed hopelessly disorganized, for four reports and two indi- 
vidual suggestions were submitted to the Committee. The 
Harper Company, moreover, presented, thru their counsel, a 
letter, which, among other arguments against the bill, said that 
"any measure of international copyright was objectionable 
because it would add to the price of books, and thus interfere 
with the education of the people.^^ Senator Lot M. Morrill, 
chairman, reported adversely because of the lack of unanimity 
of opinion among those interested. Perhaps a brief quotation 
from his report will be of interest as showing the attitude of a 
large number of our congressmen at this period. He main- 
tained that " an international copyright was not called for by 
reasons of general equity or of constitutional law; that the 
adoption of any plan which had been proposed would be of 
very doubtful advantage to American authors, and would not 
only be an unquestionable and permanent injury to the interests 
engaged in the manufacture of books, but a hindrance to the 
diffusion of knowledge among the people and to the cause of 
American education."^® 

The lack of coordination among the friends of international 
copyright was largely removed in 1883 when the American 
Copyright League was organized and began an active campaign 
to arouse popular sentiment. Perhaps they were largely re- 
sponsible for the fact that in 1884 ^^^ in 1885 the annual mes- 
sages of President Arthur and of President Cleveland con- 
tained strong recommendations for the passage of some sort 
of international copyright bill. 

''"Ibid., p. 68. 
^^ Ibid., p. 70. 

^Congressional Record, 50th Congress, ist session, Vol. 19, pt. 4, Wash- 
ington, 1888, p. 351 1. 



105 

On January 21, 1886, the twelfth international copyright bill 
was introduced into the Senate by Chase of Rhode Island. The 
Senate Committee on Patents took careful testimony from 
friends and foes in four public hearings. ^^ The Chase bill 
marked an important turning point in the history of the struggle. 
The long educational campaign was producing fruit. It was 
no longer a question whether or not there should be interna- 
tional copyright, but merely what form it should take. 

But the friends of the measure did not rest. The American 
Publishers' Copyright League was organized in 1887. The 
Executive Committee of this league was given instructions to 
cooperate with the American Copyright League, which was 
composed of authors. A Conference Committee was imme- 
diately formed of the executive committees of the two leagues, 
and this body took the leadership in all the work done between 
1887 and 1 89 1. Copyright leagues were formed in Boston, 
Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Denver, Buffalo, 
Colorado Springs, and in many other places. Missionary work 
was carried on with such zeal that the public conscience began 
to be aroused. The matter was taken up in the pulpit; The 
National Sin of Piracy, a classic of its kind, by the Rev. Henry 
Van Dyke of New York, was widely circulated. The press, 
secular and religious, made international copyright a question 
of the day. 

Authors gave what were called " author's readings," in 
which the leading American writers read selections from their 

*' Mr. Dana Estes, of the Boston firm of Estes, Lauriat & Co., said at 
one of these hearings : " For two years past tho I belong to a publishing 
house that emits nearly $1,000,000 worth of books per year, I have abso- 
lutely refused to entertain the idea of publishing an American manuscript. 
I have returned many scores, if not hundreds, of manuscripts of Ameri- 
can authors, unopened even, simply from the fact that it is impossible to 
make the books of m.ost American authors pay, unless they are first pub- 
lished and acquire recognition through the columns of the magazines. 
Were it not for that one saving opportunity of the great American maga- 
zines which are now the leading ones of the world and have an inter- 
national reputation and circulation, American authorship would be at a still 
lower ebb than at present." (^Senate Reports, ist Session, 49th Congress, 
1885-86, Washington, 1886, Vol. 7, Report No. 1188, p. 53.) Mr. Henry 
Holt made a very similar speech at the same time. 



106 

own works. These were widely attended and served as effect- 
ive advertisements of their cause, while the receipts aided in 
the expense of the campaign. Among those who took part in 
these readings were Eggleston, Stedman, Stoddard, Gilder, 
Stockton, Bunner, Cable, Page, Julian Hawthorne, and Harris. 

Such is the outline of the struggle for protection by Amer- 
ican and British authors, aided finally by practically every im- 
portant American publisher, for even the Harpers had radically 
changed their views since 1872. What then were those potent 
forces working against international copyright which so long 
defeated every attempt? 

One of the strongest influences has already been indicated — 
ignorance and apathy on the subject. The large majority of 
the Americans were indifferent. They did not at first see 
clearly the moral obliquity inherent in the purchase of a pirated 
volume, or the serious injury they were doing to American 
nationality when they failed to encourage the American 
author by buying his book. They did not see the danger of 
the loss of national ideals thru the reading of cheap books 
entirely at variance with the democratic and social fiber of 
our lives, which formed an alarming proportion of the reading 
of the masses. On these points our national conscience was 
not dead but only sleeping to awaken at the earnest call of 
those of clearer vision, who were to show the people that, as 
Lowell put it, " There is one thing better than a cheap book, 
and that is a book honestly come by " ; and, he might have 
added, one that bears an honest message. 

The measure was regarded by some as class legislation and 
as monopolistic in character. The question of copyright was 
very early confused with that of the protective tariff. The 
protectionists were those most opposed to the measure. At 
first sight it looks as though the exact opposite should have 
been the case, for the American author was but asking that 
the product of his labor should be protected from imported 
goods upon which no duty (copyright) had been paid, but 
which had been simply " appropriated " ; and that he be not 
undersold. What troubled the protectionists, however, was 
the possibility that if the privilege of selling books were 



107 

granted to foreigners, they might be printed abroad ; and thus 
the mechanical features of the production of books assumed 
a much more important aspect in their eyes than the intellectual 
and spiritual side. The binding was worth more than the con- 
tent, the ink than the idea. Indeed the final treaty was for a 
while in danger because of the opposition of the Typographical 
Union. The same attitude had been present in Great Britain. 
Mr. William H. Appleton, in defense of himself and the Amer- 
ican people, made the charge that Great Britain had never 
offered the United States a treaty shaped merely for the pro- 
tection of the author, but that " it is really an authors' and 
publishers' copyright that is demanded of us — Every arrange- 
ment that England has hitherto offered is but a kind of legal 
saddle for the English publisher to ride his author into the 
American book-market."*^ 

Philadelphia was the chief center of opposition to an inter- 
national copyright agreement, tho to a Philadelphian, Henry 
C. Lea, was due the wording of the typesetting and non- 
importation clauses, the insertion of which bridged the gap 
between authors and publishers and made the final treaty pos- 
sible. Mr. Henry Carey Baird of Philadelphia was the leader 
of the opposition, and the most able exponent of the advan- 
tages of existing conditions. In 1872 he presided over a meet- 
ing held at Philadelphia at which the following resolutions 
were adopted : 

" I. That thought, unless expressed, is the property of the 
thinker; when given to the world, it is, as light, free to all. 

2. As property it can only demand the protection of the mu- 
nicipal laws of the country to which the thinker is subject. 

3. The author of any country, by becoming a citizen of this, 
and assuming and performing the duties thereof, can have 
the same protection than an American author has. 4. The 
trading of privileges to foreign authors for privileges to be 
granted to Americans is not just, because the interest of 
others than themselves may be sacrificed thereby. 5. Because 
the good of the whole people, and the safety of republican in- 
stitutions, demand that books shall not be made costly for the 

*• William H. Appleton, Letters on International Copyright, New York, 
1872. Pamphlet, octavo, pp. 25, p. 7. 



108 

multitude by giving the power to foreign authors to fix their 
price here as well as abroad."*^ 

This quotation shows concisely the views held by the oppo- 
nents of international copyright law, tho Mr. Baird omits one 
important argument, put forth by his allies, that such a law 
would hinder adaptation. No evidence is obtainable that the 
first half of the first proposition met with a very indignant 
denial. The second half embodies a confusion of form and 
content which was especially prevalent during the entire dis- 
cussion. Probably the facts of Von Hoist's history are com- 
mon property, as Mr. Baird argues, but the person who makes 
too Hberal use of his facts plus his form is apt to repent. 

It is not necessary to discuss each of these articles, but the 
last one is of especial importance ; for what popular opposi- 
tion there was to international copyright is largely embodied in 
it. Books whose influence were for the " good of the whole 
people" were, it is safe to say now, not really made more 
costly. " Libraries " or series of books, composed over- 
whelmingly of fiction taken without compensation from the 
works of British authors, did furnish cheap reading. New 
numbers of these pirated series appeared sometimes as often 
as twice a week. It can be readily imagined what class of 
fiction was necessarily pubhshed when it was issued at that 
rate. Anything would do to fill in. Other classes of books, 
those that needed careful and accurate printing and illus- 
tration were seldom printed, for the reputable publisher knew 
that a cheaper pirated edition, no matter what its imperfec- 
tions, might cause an actual loss on his conscientious pro- 
duction. 

"Adaptation," mentioned above, was one of the war cries 
of the opposition. An international copyright law, they 
argued, would prevent British books on such subjects as theol- 
ogy, education, and law from being modified to meet American 
conditions. 

" Adaptation " particularly excited the ire of the British 

" Geo. Haven Putnam, " Literary Property," in The Question of the 
Copyright, New York, 1891, p. 73. The passage may not be a direct quo- 
tation, as it is not so indicated. I have been unable to identify it. 



109 

writers, tho the danger of mutilation was far greater in the 
case of the Americans. Much more often did a dash of the 
proof-reader's pen across the title page rob the latter of that 
glory to which Lord Camden himself thought they were en- 
titled. Even at a very early period British writers were too 
well known and too widely read for garbled versions to go 
undetected, and once detected, the public demanded a correct 
copy. That exquisite literary gem, the footnote in which 
Mistress Anne Hunter so sweetly explains just why she came 
to write Freneau's Death Song of a Cherokee Indian*^ could 
hardly have been produced, and afterwards stumbled over by 
two editors, in America, where a more intimate acquaintance 
with British literature would have caused the immediate dis- 
covery of a corresponding theft. 

To name but one example: in 1796 one Mr. Prigmore at- 
tempted to produce The School for Citizens which he had 
altered without acknowledgment from a British comedy.*^ 
The mistake in judgment was atrocious : had he merely adapted 
Kotzebue, as did Dunlap himself, he would have received ap- 
probation instead of excoriation. The struggle of the Amer- 
ican playwright against the exploitation of foreign authors was 
even more bitter and desperate than had been that of the 
novelist; for in their case they must take the field against 
English, French, and German. Mr. Wilkins has found fifty- 
six works of Kotzebue alone reprinted in this country between 
1799 and 1826. Scribe and other French dramatists soon 
reached America, and what these two countries could not sup- 
ply could be secured in England. The financial reasons of 
the publishers for preferring British novels were multiplied 
four fold for the stage manager in the case of a tested play. 
In 1814 a dealer at Baltimore writes that his sales of British 
plays amount to $400 per year. Nothing is said about the 
sales of American playwrights. Miller, January 10, 1821, 
offers Barry Cornwall's Mirandola to Carey, but adds that he 

*^ Moses Coit Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 
New York, 1897, Vol. I, p. 179. 

^^ William Dunlap, A History of the American Theater, New York, 1832, 
p. 197. 



110 

is engaged to furnish Mr. Price of New York and Warren & 
Wood of Philadelphia with early copies for the use of their 
respective theaters. Munden and Thompson of New York 
approach Carey, in April, 1821, for an exchange of plays. 
They have, they write, arranged to receive from London new 
plays which they wish to offer to the theaters of both cities. 

The general attitude of theatrical managers is summed up 
in a letter by William B. Wood of Baltimore, who writes, 
May 17, 1821 : "As to Lord Byron's Tragedy,** we are all im- 
patience to see it, altho it was announced as a non actable 
drama. However, if it is possible to make it a night's enter- 
tainment it shall go hard but we shall do it." A great name as 
well as a great success was evidently enough to impress an 
American stage manager. The stream of transatlantic plays 
that flowed into America was as continuous as that of the 
novels, tho from more varied sources. Whether or not it 
accounts for the non-appearance of a great dramatic genius is 
a matter of mere conjecture: that it lessened the productions 
of talent is a fact. 

It should be added that, ending with 1850, the British laws 
had been interpreted so as to protect the American author. The 
simple sense of justice, however, did not come strongly enough 
to Americans as a nation to enable them to meet this attitude 
half way and to settle the matter thus early. And so to the 
incalculable detriment of both British and Americans the mat- 
ter was allowed to take the destructive course which has just 
been sketched. 

But the optimist who is looking for comfort in this dreary 
warfare, other than that the struggle was finally won, can find 
it in the progress of the magazine. Two letters have been 
quoted, one to Poe and one to Simms, which explain better 
than pages of theorizing its advantages and its dangers. The 
" mammoth Weeklies " we see had aided greatly in decreasing 
the popularity of Simms.*^ In the case of a writer who had 

** Byron published four in this year. 

" Simms' first volume of prose (Martin Fdber, 1833) was a collection of 
short stories. Then follow twelve novels (not counting The Book of My 
Lady, 1833, a collection of stories) which appear up to 1842. In 1844 



Ill 

no talent for the short story there was no compensation ; but 
when Poe writes a comparatively unpopular Narrative of 
Arthur Pym,^^ and later finds no publisher for his '' new col- 
lection of Tales," he can return to improving the short story 
and (as a corollary) to building up the magazines. Just what 
influence such conditions exerted in turning the genius of Poe 
away from the novel and keeping it in the channel of the short 
story probably no one is qualified to state. When, however, 
we consider the writer of talent we have something more than 
hypothesis. Mr. Estes, in the speech quoted from on page 105, 
cited Miss Murfree ("Charles Egbert Craddock") as an ex- 
ample of an exquisite talent that would never have been known 
had it not been for the saving influence of the magazine. And 
for obvious reasons are we not inclined to underestimate in 
our survey of literature the potency of the men and women 
just under genius? 

Such a saving influence to talent and to latent genius it was 
that Mathew Carey exerted in America from 1784 to 1839. In 
those hundreds of thousands of letters and accounts that rep- 
resent his publishing activity from 1787 to 1823, and in the 
glimpse we get of his successors, sons and grandsons, in the 
letters between 1834 and 1837 ^^^ between 1841 and 1842, 
are contained hints of hopes and anxieties that animated a 
long line of his contemporaries, business men as well as liter- 
ary. Here are names long ago in oblivion's dust, names that 
are fast going thither, and names that will live forever. Frank- 
lin, Washington, Lafayette, and Jefferson had occasion to ad- 
dress him. Dwight, Freneau, Belknap, Mrs. Rowson, Noah 
Webster, Irving, Miss Davidson, Neal, Cooper, Poe, Simms, 
and Dickens sought him as a publisher, in many cases as a 
personal friend. Weems relieves his querulousness in many a 

appears The Prima Donna, a short story, and after this period the extra- 
ordinary array of two-volume novels is broken in a remarkable manner. 
In 1836 he begins his chief contributions, of a critical nature largely, to 
the magazines. (William P. Trent, William Gilmore Simms, Boston, 1892, 
PP- 335-341.) It appears that Simms is trying to adapt himself to the 
literary conditions of the country. 

*^lt seems to have had a better reception in England, where it was re- 
published in 1838, 1841, and 1861. 



112 

painful quire, Dabney*' defends his translation of Eugene 
against the critics with a fervor that softens the adjacent seals; 
while letter after letter that has little or no relation to busi- 
ness shows how widely Carey's name had penetrated and how 
much trust was reposed in his judgment and tenderness of 
heart. When Thomas and Andrews, his first great rivals, 
hesitate or refuse to publish the works of an unknown author, 
he ventures, on account of the patriotism in his warm Irish 
nature, in behalf of the struggling or the obscure writer. 
Genius can generally care for itself, but the talent of the 
country greatly needed such a friend as it found in Mathew 
Carey. Exactly how much he influenced the production of 
American literature can be told only by that deeply psycho- 
logical study which determines just how far the writers that 
will live in our literature used the minor ones, which he alone 
encouraged, to build upon, and to what extent they themselves 
would otherwise have succumbed to untoward circumstances. 
But surely his influence must have been far more potent than 
that of many a writer whose biography has long adorned our 
libraries. We have firm ground under our feet as we turn 
from the producer to the consumer. When the history of 
literary culture in America is written no small praise must 
be given to the man who caused books and all their attendant 
blessings to penetrate even beyond the Mississippi while yet 
the Indian disputed possession with the white man. 

*^ Richard Dabney (1787-1825) was born in Louisa County, Virginia. 
His early schooling was neglected, but at the age of about sixteen he began 
to study the classics and made rapid progress. In 181 1 he was injured by 
the burning of the Richmond theater, opium was prescribed and he became 
a slave to the habit and also to strong drink. His Poems, Original and 
Translated were published in a thin duodecimo volume at Richmond in 
1 812. It was not popular, and the author attempted to suppress it. In 
1815 an enlarged edition containing translations from the Greek and the 
Latin and showing considerable scholarship and power of expression was 
published, by Carey, at Philadelphia. For this volume Carey paid him $40. 
He was employed quite frequently by Carey as a translator, proofreader 
and collector of literary materials. In the latter capacity he gave con- 
siderable aid in the production of the Olive Branch. A long series of 
letters from him is found in the correspondence for 1814. 



113 

There has been no sustained attempt in this study to bring 
out the inspiring patriotism of the man ; and no fully adequate 
one to show his lovable nature ; for his name ranks high 
among American philanthropists. Perhaps Poe, who knew 
him personally, has given the best estimate of his character in 
his review of Carey's Autobiography'^^ when he says that " In 
the whole private and public course of Mr. Mathew Carey the 
strictest scrutiny can detect nothing derogatory to the char- 
acter of ' the noblest work of God, an honest man.' "^^ 

** Published in The New England Magazine, Boston, 1833-4, Vols. 5, 
6, 7. 

*^ The Southern Literary Messenger, Richmond, 1836, Vol. II, p. 203. 



APPENDIX I 

William Cobbett, after his return to England, in June, 1800, 
set up, under encouragement from the government, his Weekly 
Register which afterwards became famous. But he changed 
rapidly from Toryism to Radicalism. Among the memories of 
America that he took back with him was that of the liberty of 
the press. When he threw himself with such ardor into the 
reform movements which culminated later in the Reform Bill 
of 1832 and in the Corn Laws he sought aid in America in 
direct contributions from the pens of other writers as well as 
in the republication of his own articles. Then it was that he 
recalled his former enemy, who, on his side, was always willing 
to forgive and to fight under the banner of any man who 
sought to better the conditions of the human race. Carey 
won him other friends in this country, notable among whom 
was Richard Rush. 

Later, in 181 7, when Cobbett's long fight for political and 
social betterment had aroused the wrath of a reactionary and 
unscrupulous ministry, he was forced to flee to America, where 
he remained until November, 1819.^ Just before leaving he 
wrote " Mr. Cobbett's Taking Leave of his Countrymen," which 
appeared in the Weekly Register for April 5, 181 7. 

" If I remain here," he says, " I must cease to write, either 
from compulsion, or from a sense of duty to my countrymen ; 
therefore it is impossible to do any good to the cause of my 
country by remaining in it; but, if I remove to a country where 
I can write with perfect freedom, it is not only possible, but 
very probable, that I shall, sooner or later, be able to render 
that cause important and lasting service . . . I can serve that 
cause no longer by remaining here; but the cause itself is so 
good, so just, so manifestly right and virtuous, and has been 
combated by means so unusual, so unnatural and so violent, 
that it must triumph in the end." 

^ See p. 118. 

114 



115 

(W. Cobbett to M. Carey) 

BOTLEY, NEAR SOUTHAMPTON, l6 July, 1815. 

Dear Sir, 

I thank you for the little work, which you have been so 
good as to send me, and of which, you may be assured, I shall 
make the best use in my power. We have now lived to see 
the necessity of a secure and hearty co-operation between the 
friends of wisdom in all countries, and especially those of Eng- 
land and America. Terrible as things seem here ; bent, as we 
appear to be, upon rooting out the very fibers of freedom all 
over the earth, there are many, very many, good men in Eng- 
land ; excellent minds ; and what now appears outwardly to 
be the sweeping triumph of tyranny, is, in fact, a desperate 
struggle of tyranny, whose monstrous exertions must finally 
defeat herself, and in dealing blows against whom you have 
been very successful. Your two works contain much informa- 
tion, peculiarly useful to me. The Olive Branch has found its 
way to me from Boston. Situated, as I am, at such a distance 
from London, I have few opportunities of sending anything to 
America ; but if you will point out anything that I can do for 
you, I will, if within my power, do it. I now do myself 
the pleasure to send you a Copy of Mr. Birkbeck's Tour in 
France last year ; very well worth your reading. 

I perceive, that there are some writers in America, and one 
or two amongst the friends of freedom, who delight in remind- 
ing their readers, that I once labored to an end, the opposite 
of that, at which I now aim. That the seekers after titles 
and tyranny should act thus, is, by no means, surprising; but, 
there are two good causes, which ought to restrain the latter: 
justice to me, and good to the world. As to the former, ought 
it not to be bourne in mind, that youth, inexperience, prejudice 
of education, concurring with the universal abuse of my native 
country, at the time, were quite sufficient to account for an 
ardent mind taking a wrong bias and obstinately persevering 
therein, especially under that legal persecution which I am 
always ready to assert, that I endured in America. If I have 
been brought round by the feeling of greater persecution and 
by that alone ; admit this to be the fact, what is there faulty in 
it? For what do men live, but to grow wiser? 

For what is experience but to correct their errors? Then, 
as to the latter cause ; ought not the friends of freedom in 
America to reflect, that, though they may, in some small 
degree, lessen the effect of my writings by their conduct above 
mentioned, they can thereby only do so much harm to the 
cause, which those writings are so well calculated to aid. For 



116 

my part, I have recollections of the past errors or past hostility 
of those who nom tug at the same oar with myself. With a 
great facility at writing; with a stock of experience such as 
few men possess ; with a mass of information collected from 
all sources ; with great disposition to labour ; and with health 
such as falls to the lot of not one man out of ten thousand, 
to which add easy circumstances and an obedient family of 
promising children ; few men have such power to do good in 
the cause of mankind. This good I am endeavoring to do. 
This must be clear to every man in America. It is, therefore, 
to say the least of it, very silly and waspish to carp at the 
errors of 1796. As to the ruffians who still affect to think 
that I was once in the way of this government they are beneath 
notice. However, after all, these carpings will have no effect 
worth speaking of. Twenty years experience has taught me, 
that people will read that which is written to their taste, and 
that, sooner or later, reason and truth will prevail, if they are 
put before sensible people in a way to be clearly understood. 

I congratulate you most heartily upon the defeat of the 
Royal Pirates of the Straights by your gallant Navy.^ Even 
this is a blow against general tyranny. Even this inculcates 
the excellence of your political institutions, and tends to extend 
the effects of your example. Be united; concede a little on 
both sides amongst yourselves ; and you will be not only happy 
and free but, will make other nations the same. 
To Mr. M. Carey 
Philadelphia. 

I am, dear sir. 

Your most obedt sert 

Wm. Cobbett. 

(W. Cobbett to M. Carey) 

London, 5 January, 1816. 
Dear Sir, 

I am very sorry to learn, that you have not received the 
copy of Major Cartwright's little book. I saw him yesterday, 
in a few hours after I had received yours of the 17th of No- 
vember, and though he has but one copy left, he has promised 
me, that I shall have it to send to you, to do which, securely I 
shall have an opportunity in a few weeks. 

^ The Pride of Brittania Humbled; or, The Queen of the Ocean Un- 
queen'd by the American Cock-boats, etc, etc.. Illustrated and demon- 
strated by four Letters to Lord Liverpool (Philadelphia, 181 5) is one of 
the several pamphlets by Cobbett which the Americans saw fit to publish 
at this period. 



117 

The " Olive Branch " would have bourne, not a " small," 
but a " large edition " ; but, it would have clapp'd the pub- 
lisher, for 2 years, in Newgate, or, in some more deadly jail. / 
was afraid to cause the Exposition to be published; or, even 
lend it. By exciting a great deal of curiosity about it, and by 
throwing it in the way of a man who thought less of danger 
than of profit, five editions of it was got out. Shame appears 
to have restrained the arm of power upon this occasion. If 
one dared even to discuss, in the mildest way, any ticklish 
subject, do you think that the brave people of Ireland, could be 
shut up in their houses from sunset to sunrise upon pain of 
transportation. 

I am very happy that you think that I have done some ser- 
vice to America, and still more to hear your animating de- 
scription of her prosperity. If that continue, and if her sons 
be wise, the Despots have, even now, done nothing as to the 
final accomplishment of their views. The fate of freedom is 
yet unknown to them; and they seem to perceive it, and to 
give signs of their fears, every time that America is mentioned. 

You, who saw England so long ago, can form no idea of the 
sort of government that we have now. The parliament of 
your time was a thing no more resembling that of this day, 
than a Greyhound resembles a Hyena. No man of any sense 
ever feels any interest in its proceedings. The affairs of the 
country are, however, drawing very fast towards a crisis. 
The war has left a load behind it far more dangerous to the 
government than any event of mere war could ever have been. 
Pecuniary distress has spread consternation amongst the ranks. 
Every one has his remedy, and all fear some great and terrible 
convulsion. 

I should only put you to expense by enclosing any of my 
Registers ; but, if some parts of the late Numbers, which I 
have sent out in the hope of their being republished, meet 
your eye, you will see that I am resolved no longer to suffer 
my communications with America to be interrupted by the 
means hitherto practiced ; and from the same source, you will 
also learn the real situation in this country, which is precisely, 
and to the very letter, the opposite of that of America, agree- 
ably to your description. 

In a few weeks, I shall write to you again, and, I shall then 
send Major Cartwright's book,^ with, perhaps, some other 

^This was probably Major John Cartwright's Six Letters to the Marquis 
of Tavistock, on a Reform of the Commons House of Parliament, 1812. 
Major John Cartwright (i 740-1 824) entered the navy at the age of eigh- 
teen. About 1775 he began to take an active interest in political affairs, 



118 

thing or two if I meet with them worth your notice, and Ukely 
to be of use. 

In the meanwhile I remain your 

Most obedient and most hu — serv't. 

Wm. Cobbett. 

(From Wm. Cobbett, Jr.) 

To Mr. M. Carey, 
Philadelphia. 

No. 86, Maiden Lane, New York, 7 May. 181 7 
Dear Sir, 

My father and brother John Morgan and myself are just 
arrived here, having stuck to our own country to the last hour. 
The former is gone to look about him a little in Long Island, 
but desired me to write a line by Messieurs Archambault and 
Rousseau, the bearers, with his kindest regards to you. — These 
two gentlemen were lately of Bonaparte's suite ; they are two 
out of four that our government would not allow to remain 
with him at St. Helena ; they came in the same ship with us 
from Liverpool, and are now in quest of Joseph Bonaparte. 
They made us very agreeable companions on board the ship, 
and my father wishes to be of any service he can to them as 
they are perfect strangers in this country, and cannot even 
speak the language enough to pay their way ; Therefore my 
father would esteem it very kind of you to put them in the 
way of finding King Joseph's house in Philadelphia, after 
which they will be at home. 

Hoping that yourself and Mrs. Morgan are well, 
I beg you to believe me. Dear Sir, 
Mr. J. Morgan Yours very sincerely, 

Wm Cobbett, Jr. 

and became a champion of the Americans. A Letter to Edmund Burke, 
controverting the Principles of American Government laid down in his 
lately published speech on American Taxation is a brief in their behalf. 
He refused to join Lord Howe's command against America. Among the 
reforms he advocated were those of an annual parliament and universal 
suffrage ; he was also an anti-slavery leader, and was called the Father of 
Reform. From 1803 to 1804 he contributed papers to Cobbett's Register 
on the defenseless condition of England. In 181 o, 181 2, and 1823 he pub- 
lished works on constitutional reforms. He was active in the cause of 
the Greeks. In 181 3 he was arrested in the course of a political tour, 
but released soon after. In 1820 he was tried and fined for sedition. 



APPENDIX II 

Stansbury, the writer of this letter, was a printer of con- 
siderable repute in his day. His date for the first use of 
lithography in America is worth noticing. 

" New York Novem. 12. 1821 
"Dear Sir, 

" I take the liberty of sending you herewith several speci- 
mens of engraving executed in the French method on stone. 
With the general history of this art, now so much in use on the 
Continent, you are no doubt acquainted: the present I believe 
is the first instance of its application to any useful purpose in 
this Country. . . ." 

Arthur Jo. Stansbury. 



119 



APPENDIX III 

The following list is given, as indicated at page 31, as a 
typical order of the period about 1800. It shows that the read- 
ing of the general public at that time was of quite as ephemeral 
a nature as it is at present. 

I Mansion House — i Ethelinde 

I The Abbess — i Ivy Castle 

I Abbey of St Asaph 

I Neighborhood 

I Suzette's Dowry 

4 Simple Story — 4 Nature & Art 

4 Melissa & Narcia 

1 Banished Man — i Desmond 

2 Fool of Quality 

2 Julia de Roubingre 

2 Man of Feeling 

2 Man of the World 

2 Man as he is 

2 Rasselas & Dinarbas 

2 Sorrows of Edith 

2 Arabian Tales Complete 

1 Eliosa 

2 Count de Saulene 
2 Sophia Sternheim 
2 Fille de Chambre 

1 Lucinda Courtney 

2 Natural Daughter 
2 Vicar of Wakefield 

2 Madame Ricobina's Letters 

? Nettley Abbey 

2 Haunted Priory 

2 Welch Neices 

2 Agnes de Courci 

I Ned Evans 

1 The Farmer of Englewood 

2 House of Junian 
I Hugh Nevor 



120 



APPENDIX IV 

The following bill not only indicates, as suggested on page 
fifty-three what German books were making their way to 
America as early as 1816, but also the cost of the current litera- 
ture, and the difficulty of collecting a small order in Germany. 
In this case some of the books had to be ordered from Weimar 
and from Leipsic. 

Bought for Matth Carey by Professor Ebeling 
Hamburgh May 181 6. 

C c« ^ 

3 ^ '^ 

6 German Bibles in Folio with Plates. Price at Lunenburg 96 14 

Freight from Lunenburg i 12 

Perthes's total ms 98 19 

Agnes von Lilien 7 8 

Babo neue Schauspiele 3 

Bertucks Bilderbuch fur Kinder Nr. i to 158 at i M each 156 

Text explaining it. Nr. i to 156 83 

Nr. 151 to 156 single 3 5 
Nr. 51 of the Text wanting is already ordered from 
Weimar and expected every day. 

Burde Erzahlungen 2 8 

Hagemeister don Juan 2 

Heinse Laidion 3 

Herder's Lieder der Liebe i 12 

Hufelands Matrobiobik 2 vols. 5 8 

Jing's Heinr. Stilling 5 vols. 17 8 

Klinger's Faust's Leben 5 

Lafontaine Fedor u. Marie 4 8 

Marchen, Erzahlungen 2 vols 8 

Leben eines armer Landprediger 2 vol. 10 8 

Meiners's Geschichte der Ursprung der Wissenschaften 2 vols 12 

Historische Vergleichung der Sitten 2 vols. 1 1 8 

(The 3rd volume is expected daily from the Leipsic fair.) H". 

current ms 336 13 

Milbillers Elizabeth 6 

" Komradin 4 

Kotzebues Almanach dramatischer Spiele the newest 2 volumes each 10 

Kotzebues nissischer Kreigsgefangener 3 

Crt. mks. 359 13 

10 p. cent 36 13 

323 
6 Bibles 98 10 

Hambr. Current mks 421 10 

121 



APPENDIX V 

The following letters, except the first, which is interesting in 
other ways, throw some light upon the intellectual activities of 
Thomas Jefferson after his retirement from the presidency. 

(To Mathew Carey) Washington Jan I2th 1801 

Sir 

I received some time ago your favor by Doctor Carey together 
with the American Monitor, for which be pleased to accept my 
thanks — I have no doubt of its utility as a school Book, as soon 
as the pupil is so far advanced as to reflect on what he reads, 
& that I believe is in an earlier stage than is generally imagined. 
I concur with you in the importance of inculcating into the 
minds of young people the great moral & political truths & that 
it is better to put into their hands Books which while they 
teach them to Read teach them to think also & to think soundly. 

I am with great esteem 
Your most obdt serv 
Th Jefferson 

Messrs Careys 
Philadelphia. 
(Reed July 2 Ans July 5) 
Monticello June 28 (18)18 
Dear Sir 

Soon after the date of my letter of the 21st I received Bridg- 
man's Index safely, and had taken for granted McMahon was 
coming with it, but as it did not come, I presume it has either 
been forgotten or is lodged by the way. in either case I ask 
your information & attention to it; and further that you will 
be so kind as to inform me whether a copy of Baron Grimm's 
memoirs (16 vols 8vo) can be had, and at what price? I 
salute you with friendship and respect 

Th. Jefferson 
Mr. M. Carey. 

The "letter of the 21st" was not found. 

Monticello Oct. 6. (18)18. 
Dear Sir 

Your letter of Sep. 21 reached me on the 28, and the book 
which is the subject of it had come to hand by the preceding 

122 



123 

mail, both found me recovering from a long indisposition, 
and not yet able to sit up to write, but in pain. The reading 
a 4to volume of close print is an undertaking which my ordi- 
nary occupations and habits of life would not permit me to 
encounter; nor under any circumstances could I arrogate to 
myself the office of directing or anticipating the public judg- 
ment as to the publications worthy of their attention, letters 
of mine, unwarily written, have been sometimes used by editors 
with that view, but not with my consent, but in one or two par- 
ticular cases, if the vol. of Haines's you sent me be your only 
copy, I will return it to you. if you have another, I would 
willingly keep it, and be glad to receive the 2nd when it comes 
out. I shall be glad if you can send me by mail the 2 books 
undermentioned, and would rather receive them unbound. I 
see them advertised by Wells & Lilly of Boston. I salute you 
with sincere esteem and respect. 

Griesbach : Greek testament, the 8vo and full edition. 

The New Testament in an improved version on the basis of 
Newcome's translation. 

free Th Jefferson Free 

Mr. Matthew Carey 

Philadelphia 

Dear Sir Monticello Nov. 28, (18)18. 

Reed. Dec. 4) 
Ans. Dec. 7 
In a letter of Oct. 6 I requested the favor of you to send me 
Griesbach's Greek testament, the 8vo & full edition, and The 
New testament in an improved version on the basis of New- 
come's translation which, altho published in Boston, I supposed 
could be had in Philadelphia. — hearing nothing of them I con- 
jecture they are either forgotten or not to be had in Philadel- 
phia. I would rather have them unbound, and they may come 
by mail if to be had. I salute you with friendship & respect. 

Th. Jefferson 
Mr. Carey 

(To Mathew Carey) 

Dear Sir Monticello July 31, (18)20 

Your favor of July 13. was received on the 21st inst. and I 
now enclose you 25.D. in bills of the bank of Virginia as none 
of the U.S. are to be had here, the surplus of 1.75 may cover 
the discount perhaps. 

I presume you import from time to time books from England, 
and should be glad if on the first occasion you would write 
for a copy of Baxter's history of England for me. and if there 



124 

be an 8vo edn of it, I should greatly prefer it. If none, I must 
be contented with the original 4to. I doubt whether it went 
to a 2nd edition, even the Whigs of England not bearing to 
see their bible, Hume, republicanized. octavo volumes suit my 
hand, and my shelves so much better than any other size, that 
if the Conversations in chemistry, mentioned below can be had 
from England in 8vo I would rather wait for their importation, 
if not I would prefer the English edition 12 mo that of Hum- 
phrey's. If J. Sinclair's book is not to be had with you it 
might be added to the importation. I salute you with great 
friendship & respect. 

Th. Jefferson 

Baxter's History of England. 

Conversations in Chemistry. 

Sr. John Sinclairs Code of agriculture, this is the work 
which is in a single vol. thick 8vo and must be distinguished 
from a similar work in several volumes published some years 
ago and of which there is a condensed digest. 

Mess. M. Carey & son Monti cello Aug. 14, (18)20. 

(Reed Aug. 20) 
I received yesterday your favor of the 5th, and by the pre- 
ceding mail the Conversations in Chemistry had come to hand. 
I am quite content with the edition, as I shall be with the 
American edition of Sr. J. Sinclair's Code of agriculture. I 
had not before known that it had been reprinted in America. I 
wish that there may have been an 8vo edition of Baxter's his- 
tory of England published there, if not I must be content with 
the 4to. order it to be well bound if you please, as I am 
attached to good bindings. I salute you with esteem & respect. 

Th. Jefferson. 



APPENDIX VI 

Baltimore 26, Feb. 1822. 

Messrs. H. C. Carey & I. Lea 
Gentlemen, 

I intimated to you some time ago that, when Logan, with 
which I had been in travail for an unprecedented time, consid- 
ering my earHer habits of gestation, was fairly launched, I had 
a plan in view which I thought might be made profitable and 
honourable, to you, and myself — that plan is now mentioned. 
I have nearly completed a series of novels — in secrecy and dark- 
ness, while most of the good people of this world, particularly 
the watchmen, were asleep — . The first you have — the second 
and third are finished and the fourth, will be, within a month — 
I believe. This has been no common effort — I have bent all 
my power and faculties to the labour — (one line rendered illeg- 
ible by the fold in the letter) ... of my own reputation be- 
cause I do not mean to be known in them — but willing while I 
could, to contribute, — , do not call me vain I have thought on 
what I say, and I do not lightly say it — to the reputation of my 
country. 

The whole are materially American — the second entirely new 
in the design and execution — containing notices & speeches of 
our eminent men — actually living — native scenery, habits, etc., 
the third a tale, in which I have striven hard to counteract some 
prejudices natural to the mind repety deformed and dwarfish 
gentry manners life — etc — and the fourth, which is the last that 
I have written, or shall write, I verily believe, for neither 
health, duty nor profession will permit me to continue the 
labour, is a tale utterly woven abt the events of our Revolution 
artfully narrated — and with all the passion of my nature — 

In the first place I can assure you that no mortal living knows 
of the matter thus far — : and I am determined that no one 
shall, if I can help it, whose interest is not as well as mine, to 
keep the secret. I do not mean to acknowledge them but I 
know well that I shall be suspected, for I have been assailed, 
recently, from several quarters, and even from our bench, with 
entreaty and persuasion to write a novel a poem — . — 

Much of the value of the books will, of course, depend upon 
this secrecy, after the public are excited. Logan, I do not 
expect will startle them much, — (Waverly did not) but it will 
put them into a state of preparation — against the second shock, 

125 



126 

which I promise you, shall charge them, brim full of electric- 
ity! — the third will reduce their temperature — ^help to make 
Logan more valuable — and prepare the way for the last upon 
which I have deliberately thrown out every power of my heart 
and brain. . . . 

It will take some time you know, for the first novel of an 
unknown writer to make its way where it will be read — but let 
it be read, and I shall not tremble for its fate — nay — I shall not 
tremble — after a little time — at any comparison; but I am im- 
patient — I cannot wait for the gradual accretion of such profit 
— and therefor I would have you come down upon them (the 
publick) clap apb clap, before they can get their breath. They 
are startled at the celebriety of the Scotch novelist — Let us 
appal them — if we can ! . . . 

Yours truly 
John Neal 



APPENDIX VII 

The following letter strikingly exemplifies the well known 
popularity of Webster's Grammatical Institute, first published 
from 1783 to 1785, and the condition and code of ethics of the 
publishing trade in 1791. 

(To Mathew Carey & Co.) 

Hartford Aug 14th 1791 
Gentlemen 

In answer to yours of the nth current, I give you the state 
of facts — That under the laws of the U. States, there can be 
no restriction of the sale of any book by lazv. A man who can 
print the books, recorded under that law, can sell them in any 
part of the U. States. The contrary would be very absurd. 
But this is no disadvantage to a purchaser of my books, for 
the right extends to one as well as to another. If you pur- 
chase the exclusive right of printing in a certain number of 
states, your sales are not by lazv confined to those states; & if 
Mr. Thomas in Massachusetts can send the books to Philadel- 
phia, you can send as many as you please to Mass — . It is 
therefore agreed by Messrs Hudson & Goodwin & Mess Thomas 
& Anderson that they will not interfere with each others sales ; 
and I have no doubt they and the proprietors in Vermont would 
cheerfully sign a writing to that effect. The proprietors have 
no difference with each other & no clashing. Indeed it is with 
difficulty that some of them supply the demand at their own 
stores. 

By "" West of the Hudson " I mean to comprehend all the 
southern & western states ; & it is probable that before the expi- 
ration of 13 years, the sale will be considerably extended to the 
westward of the Allgany. My reason for limiting your sales 
by the Hudson is this ; the City of New York is a large com- 
mercial town & traders from great part of New England go 
there for goods. By this means New York supplies my books 
for a great extent of territory, & when Mr. Campbells term 
expires, which will be the May after next, the right returns to 
me. The right of supplying that city I should not sell for less 
than 1000 dollars in hand, or 150 dollars annually for the re- 
maining eleven years. If you were disposed to purchase that 
right, & either supply the market yourselves or sell to a printer 

127 



128 

in New York, I do not know that I should have any objections. 
But the price I set you is low, even for the right west of the 
Hudson ; for I find the sales are larger than I apprehended. 
In short, gentlemen, my intention is that the purchaser in Phila- 
delphia should supply the whole market west & south of New 
Jersey — & also in New Jersey, so far as will suit the commer- 
cial interest of the people. Purchasers bordering on the Hud- 
son will get books in New York — ^those on the Delaware will 
furnish themselves in Philad. But you will be under no restric- 
tion as to sales west of the Hudson. On the other hand, if I 
should, after Campbells term, supply New York myself, I will 
bind myself to restrict my sales to that city and the eastward; 
and the other proprietors are restrained by agreement as well 
as by the inconvenience of sending books abroad. Neither 
Hudson & Goodwin nor Thomas & Andrews have, I believe, 
ever sent a book westward of the Hudson, & yet they are re- 
strained only by their honor & convenience. 

I would further inform you th all the proprietors have agreed, 
& a clause is inserted in every contract except that of Hudson 
& Goodwin, which was made long before the United States law 
was passed, binding them to adhere to some uniform prices in 
the sales of the books, whenever three fourths of the proprie- 
tors shall agree upon the prices — at least that they will not sell 
below the price agreed upon. 

There has been a controversy between Mr. Young, Mr. 
Campbell Mr Patten & Messrs Hudson & Goodwin; & much 
injury has accrued to them all — But it has subsided, & the 
measures I am now taking will prevent the possibility of the 
like in future. This is my motive for a change in proprietors. 
All the present proprietors except Mr. Campbell, whose right 
will soon end, are men who will not injure the business by 
underselling one another. H you should purchase there will be 
seven proprietors ; so situated as to furnish every part of the U. 
States without interfering with each other & all men of repu- 
tation & honor. And if it should be the wish of any one to 
form a mutual agreement by writing, both as to the extent of 
their sales respectively & the prices, I think I can answer for 
the whole, that such an agreement will be readily formed. 

I could wish for your determination soon, as I am informed 
that one part of the Institute is out of print in Philad & an 
Impression wanted. 

I am. Gentlemen, with esteem 
Your obedi hum Servant, 

Noah Webster jun. 



APPENDIX VIII 

The intense competition for first copies of British novels is 
clearly shown in the two following letters. Primarily how- 
every they are here quoted to show what seem to have been the 
doubtful business methods of the Edinburgh firm, as inti- 
mated in the text at page 87. 

(To M. Carey & Sons) 

Reed. Nov. 10, (1822) 
Gentlemen, 

Since I last wrote to you I have concluded a bargain with 
Messrs Constable & Co. for Peveril of the Peak — one copy of 
the first volume of which, comes with this by the ship ''Robert 
Edwards " the second volume will shortly follow, & fragments 
of the third as it is printed. I shall send another copy of volume 
I by the New York, which leaves Liverpool on the ist Octr. — 
putting it under the especial care of my friend Mr. Isaac Judly 
— a third, copy of volume ist will be sent by some other ship 
& I shall let you have three copies of each of the volumes by 
diflferent ships. I have engaged to pay twenty five pounds per 
volume — in all £75. — Nothing has yet reached me from Gibral- 
tar, & judging from the tardiness of your correspondent there, 
it may probably be delayed for some months. I could not make 
a better bargain with Constable & Co. — they would not give 
way in the slightest degree — they have engaged to let me have 
the last sheets, at least 14 days before they publish in Edin- 
burgh, which will secure you from all danger of disappoint- 
ment. . . . (He speaks of the "Atlas " which is coming.) 

John Miller 
Fleet Street 

Sept. 24- 1822. 

(From M. Carey & Sons) 

Mr. John Miller Jan. 31st (1823). 

Your favours of 20th & 30th Novr. arrived yesterday with 
part of Peveril Vol. 3. The first of Vol 2 arrived a short time 
since per James Monroe but duplicate and trip: have not yet 
come nor have any of the Copies of Lord Byrons Tragedy 
arrived. . . . 

We think the demands of Messrs. Constables as improper 
10 129 



130 

as any we have known. They engaged to furnish the book at 
i75 and it is a matter of no importance to us whether it is in 
3 or 4 Vols. These books have always been pubd. in 2 Vols, 
here at $1.75 or $2 and those of 4 Vols, are always less profit- 
able than those in 3, as they cannot be raised in proportion to 
the additional matter. We hope, however, you have made 
some arrangements with them; as it wd be in the highest de- 
gree vexatious to us to be delayed. The whole is printed as 
far as reed — except that which came yesterday, and can have 
it out in 24 hours from the time the last part is reed. Still if 
a complete copy arrived in N. York with ours, they could print 
it in the time it requires our copy to come here and go back. 
We shd be glad to have all those books in future, but wd wish 
to have them at as moderate price as possible, for the only 
advantage we derive from the purchase is the sale of 3 or 4 
days until another Edit, can be printed in New York, Boston 
and here. 

This takes place in about 3 days from the time of publishing 
our Edition or the receipt of an English copy shd that take 
place before the publication of our's as has several times hap- 
pened. All the advantage consists in having the whole copy 
a few days before others, in order that we may send our Edi- 
tion off in every direction and receive the first sales. They 
ought to be able to give it 20 or 30 days before publication as 
proofs of the last 3 or 4 half sheets wd answer as well as the 
best impressions and should there be errors we will take our 
chances for correcting them ourselves as we have repeatedly 
done with the former Books. The time required for correc- 
tion, press work, etc etc, must be very considerable for so large 
an Edit : and they have afterwards to send it to London so 
that 20 or 30 days must certainly elapse after they could give 
proofs of the last form before publication. The conduct of 
Messrs Constables appears to us very extraordinary. They 
wrote us^ saying that the first copies of the Waverley Novels 
had been stolen from their office and charging us with having 
employed a person for the purpose, offering at the same time 
to sell us the copies in the future. We shewed the letters to 
Mr. Wardle, who had reed them from Hurst Robinson & Co. 
and sold them to us. He went to London and obtained from 
Messrs Constable & Co. a certificate that the sheets had been 

* I have been unable to find the letter from Constable and Company 
referred to by Carey. Do these letters, revealing as they do the business 
methods of the Edinburgh firm, throw any light upon the Scott-Constable 
controversy? A review of the insufficent literature on the subject now at 
hand leads to no definite conclusion. 



131 

furnished by their direction. There appears no little dis- 
crepancy between their statements at different times and we 
think it very shabby of them now to demand an additional sum 
for Vol. 4 after an express agreement for a Copy of the work. 
At all events we hope you will not fail to get the vol in due 
time and let us have it. We do not believe there will be any 
competition for it at £75, as we feel satisfied no other person 
wd give so much for it for so short a time as we can have the 
market to ourselves. Let us know as early as you can what 
will be the next work and secure it on the best terms you can. 
Longman & Company have not sent Moores poem^ to Mr. 
Wardle. They act curiously with regard to it we hope a copy 
will arrive to us in good time as it is not worth publishing 
if any other person receives a copy. Capt. Brenton's Letter 
has not arrived but from what you say we do not think the 
work wd answer. We have seen enough of the Prejudice and 
Nationality of your Countrymen in James's^ Books and in the 
retailing of his stories in the Quarterly. As soon as we re- 
ceive his letters we will answer fully. 

* Thomas Moore's Loves of the Angels is probably the poem referred to. 

' This was, in all probability, William James, a writer on naval history, 
who died in 1827. From 1812 to 1813, he was a prisoner of war in the 
United States. In 181 6, he published An Inquiry into the Merits of the 
Principal Naval Actions between Great Britain and the United States, in 
which his theme was that the naval victories of the Americans were due 
alone to superiority of numbers. This pamphlet aroused strong feeling in 
America, as evinced, for instance, in a mild form, here in this letter. The 
most important work of James was The Naval History of Great Britain, 
from th? Declaration of War by France in 1793 to the Accession of George 
IV, which was issued in five volumes from 1822 to 1824. It appears that 
an attempt to have it published in the United States drew forth the above 
remarks. 



APPENDIX IX 

Some slight idea of the interest of Dickens in things Amer- 
ican as well as his change of attitude towards American pub- 
lishers is given in the following letters. 

48 Doughty Street, London 
i8th July 1838 
Gentlemen 

I take the opportunity of my friend, Mr. Thompson, leaving 
England on a voyage of discovery to the New World, to thank 
you most cordially for your box of books, and also for your 
acknowledgment of the popularity of the Pickwick Papers in 
America, which (both the acknowledgment and the popularity, 
and especially the last) affords me the greatest delight and 
satisfaction. 

I have never seen your agent, Mr. Miller upon the subject 
of Nicholas Nickleby, but if I had I should have been unable 
to have sent you early proofs of any number that has yet 
appeared as I have been rather behind hand than in advance 
and have only completed each number a day or two before its 
publication. 

I shall be glad to hear that Nicholas is in favor with our 
American friends (whom I long to see) and if you can point 
out to me any means by which, either in this case or in any 
other, I can give you a preference or serve your interests, 
believe me that I shall be most willing and prompt to do so. 

I am 
Gentlemen 

Faithfully yours 

Charles Dickens 
Mess. Carey, Lea & Blanchard 

I Devonshire Terrace 
York Gate, Regents Park, 
Tuesday, November Twenty third, 1841. 
Dear Sirs: 

I have had the pleasure of receiving your welcome letter of 
the Thirtieth of last month and thank you cordially for its 
obliging tenor. 

I shall be only six months in America altogether; and my 
present purpose is to land at Boston; go from thence to New 

132 



133 

York and thence into the South. Of course I shall visit Phila- 
delphia at some time or other in the half year; and when I do, 
I shall not fail to see you immediately. It is scarcely possible 
until one is on your side of the Atlantic to be at all certain 
as to dates and seasons but as soon as I arrive and have shaped 
my course minutely, I will write to you again. 

In the meanwhile, accept my thanks for your polite atten- 
tion and the assurance that I am 

Dear Sirs 

Faithfully yours 

Charles Dickens 
Mess. Lea &: Blanchard 

Carlton House, New York. 
Thirteenth February, 1842. 
My Dear Sirs: 

I am cordially obliged to you for your thoughtful recollec- 
tion and for the box of books. Accept my very best thanks. 
I shall be exceedingly glad to know you and shake hands 
with you when I come to Philadelphia, where I shall be, I 
hope (though for a very few days) in a fortnight at furthest. 
I shall be glad to have too — of course between ourselves — 
some information on a business point which occurs to my mind 
just now. 

The intelligence of the long faces had reached my ears be- 
fore I received your letter. I am truly sorry for the cause of 
their elongation and wish them short again with all my heart. 

Dear Sirs 

Always Faithfully yours 



Charles Dickens 



Mess. Lea & Blanchard 



Niagara Falls. 

Thirteenth April 1842 
My Dear Sirs: 

Availing myself of your kind offers of service, I am going 
to trouble you with a few troublesome commissions. If you 
will execute them for me between this time and the end of May 
and will send me to New York at the same time a note of 
the amount you have expended for me in so doing, you will 
very much oblige me. 

1st. Can you get me a good copy of a Book called " History 
of the Indian Tribes of North America, with biographical 
Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal chiefs etc. 120 Por- 
traits. By Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall. Published 



134 

in Philadelphia by C. Biddle? If it is not very expensive and 
easily obtained, I should like two copies. 

2nd. Will you send me one complete set of my books? 

3rdly. Did you republish an English Book called " Lives of 
the Statesmen of the Commonwealth." By John Forster of 
the Middle Temple, London? If so, will you send me a copy? 

4thly. Will you send me any and every edition of Mr. Tal- 
fourd's Tragedy of " Ion " that you can possibly lay your 
hands on ? 

There — that's modest. I have quite done. 

Faithfully yours always 

Charles Dickens 
Mess. Lea & Blanchard 

Carlton House, New York. 
Second of June, 1842. 
My Dear Sirs: 

I thank you very sincerely for your kind letter and your 
handsome Present of Books. I shall carry them all home and 
put them beside your other contributions to my shelves. 

My inclination would lead me with a silken cord to Phila- 
delphia. But I am weary of travelling, and am going to lie in 
the shade of some Trees on the bank of the North river until 
Tuesday comes — that bright day in my calendar when I turn 
toward Home and England. 

Good bye. 

Always believe me 
Faithfully your friend, 
Charles Dickens 
Messrs. Lea & Blanchard 

I Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regents Park 

Twenty eighth December 1842. 
Dear Sirs: 

Rest assured that if any personal or private feeling were 
intermixed with the resolution at which I arrived when I came 
home in reference to American republications of my books, 
it would have great weight in your favor. I formed it on 
principle. Disgusted with the infamous state of the Law in 
respect of copyright, and confirmed in the opinion I have 
always held that there is no reasonable ray of hope of its 
being changed for many years to come, I determined that so 
far as I was concerned the American people should have the 
full pride, honor, glory and profit of it; that I would be no 
party to its invasion ; and that I would have nothing blown to 



135 

me by a side wind, which the dishonest breath of the popular 
legislature with-held. 

I hope that the more you see of this plunder and the dirty 
hands into which it goes, the more you will feel and advocate 
the necessity of a change. 

Always believe me 
Faithfully yours 
Charles Dickens 
Mess. Lea & Blanchard 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

A fairly complete bibliography of Mathew Carey can be 
found in J. Sabin's Bibliotheca Americana. The works listed 
below have been of service, but by far the most valuable 
material in the production of this monograph was the business 
documents of Mathew Carey and of the publishing firms which 
succeeded him. These records are not accessible to the public ; 
and no bibliography of them could be formed if they were. 
It seems unnecessary to refer to the most obvious works of 
reference on American literature, such as The National 
Cyclopedia of American Biography, Appleton's Cyclopedia, 
Lamb's Biographical Dictionary , etc., etc. 

American Book Circular. Ed. and published by Wiley & Put- 
nam, New York, April, 1843. 

American Bookseller. Vol. XVII, No. 3. New York, Feb. 
I, 1885. 

Appleton, William H., Letters on International Copyright. 
New York, 1872. (Pamphlet, pp. 24.) 

Baird, Henry Carey, Copyright, National and International, An 
Address. Philadelphia, 1884. (Pamphlet, pp. 7.) 

Bowker, R. R., Copyright, Its Lazv and Its Literature. With 
a Bibliography of Literary Property. By Thorvald Sol- 
berg. New York, 1886. 

Bryant, William Cullen, Address to the People of the United 
States in behalf of the American Copyright Club, Adopted 
at New York, October 18, 184^. New York, 1843. This 
pamphlet of eighteen pages is signed by Francis L. Hawks 
and Cornelius Matthews also. 

Bryant, William Cullen, Poetical Works. New York, 1908. 

Carey, Mathew, Autobiographical Sketches, in a Series of 
Letters Addressed to a Friend. Philadelphia, 1829. (A 
Reprint of this is listed again under New England 
Magazine.) 

136 



137 

Carey, Mathew, The Crisis, An Appeal to the good sense of 
the nation, against the spirit of resistance and dissolution 
of the Union. Philadelphia, 1832. 

Carey, Mathew, Essays on Political Economy; Or the Most 
Certain Means of Promoting the Wealth, Power, Re- 
sources, and Happiness of Nations. Philadelphia, 1822. 

Carey, Mathew, Letters on Religious Persecution, Proving 
that the most Heinous of Crimes, has not been peculiar 
to Roman Catholics. Fourth Edition, Philadelphia, 1829. 

Carey, Mathew. Miscellaneous Essays. Philadelphia, 1830. 

Carey, Mathew, The New Olive Branch: Or, An Attempt to 
Establish an Identity of Interest between Agriculture, 
Manufactures, and Commerce. Philadelphia, 1820. 

Carey, Mathew, The Olive Branch: Or, Faults on both Sides, 
Federal and Democratic. A Serious Appeal to the 
Necessity of Mutual Forgiveness and Harmony. Sixth 
Edition, Philadelphia, 181 5. 

Carey, Mathew, Vindiciae Hibernicae: Or Ireland Vindicated. 
Philadelphia, 1819. 

Congressional Record. Vol. XIX. Washington, 1888. 

Derby, J. C, Fifty Years among Authors, Books and Pub- 
lishers. New York, 1884. 

Drone, Eaton S., A Treatise on the Law of Property in In- 
tellectual Productions in Great Britain and the United 
States. Boston, 1879. 

Dunlap, William, A History of the American Theater. New 
York, 1832. 

Ford, Paul Lester, The Writings of Thomas lefferson. New 
York & London, 1899. 

Garnett, Richard, " Early Spanish-American Printing," in The 
Library, Vol. I., London, 1900. 

Goddard, Harold Clarke, Studies in New England Trans- 
cendentalism. New York, 1908. 

Green, Samuel A., Ten facsimile reproductions relating to 
New England. Boston, 1902. 

Growoll, A., Book-Trade Bibliography in the United States in 
the XIX Century. New York, 1898. 

Harrison, James A., The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. 
New York, 1902. 



138 

Hildeburn, Charles R., Issues of the Press in Pennsylvania, 

1685-178 4. Philadelphia, 1887. 
Houghton, Henry O., Early Printing in America. Montpelier, 

1894. 
Jackson, M. Katherine, Outlines of the Literary History of 

Colonial Pennsylvania. Lancaster, 1906. 
L'Estrange, Rev. A. G. K., The Life of Mary Russet Mitford. 

New York, 1870. 
Loliee, Frederic. A Short History of Comparative Literature. 

London, 1906. 
Loshe, Lillie Deming, The Early American Novel. New York, 

1907. 
Lounsbury, Thomas R., James Fenimore Cooper. Boston, 

1883. 

McMaster, John Bach. A History of the People of the United 

States. New York, 1900. 
New England Magazine, The. Volumes 5, 6, and 7. Boston, 

1833-4. 

North American Review, The. Volume 55. New York, 1842. 

Oberholzer, Ellis Paxton, The Literary History of Philadel- 
phia. Philadelphia, 1906. 

Oliver, Grace A., A Study of Maria Edgeworth. Boston, 1882. 

Port Folio, The. Volume 7. Philadelphia, 181 1. 

Putnam, George Haven, The Question of the Copyright. New 
York, 1891. (This is a series of articles by R. R. Bowker, 
Brander Matthews, G. H. Putnam, W. E. Simonds, Sir 
James Stephen, and Walter Besant, with extracts from 
speeches delivered in the Senate in 1891, etc., compiled by 
George Haven Putnam. Reference might also be made to 
A Memoir of George Palmer Putnam Together with a 
Record of the Publishing House founded by Him. By 
George Haven Putnam. Two volumes. New York, 1903. 
This work is, however, of no particular value for our im- 
mediate purpose. 

Rivington, Charles Robert, " Notes on the Stationers' Com- 
pany," in The Library. Vol. IV. London, 1903. 

Scudder, Horace E., Noah Webster, Boston, 1882. 

Senate Reports. Vol. 7. Washington, 1886. 



139 

Smith, R. Pearsall, Anglo-American Copyright, Extracted from 
The Nineteenth Century, No. 129, November, 1887. This 
is a reprint in pamphlet form, with comments by Glad- 
stone, Lord Tennyson, Rider Haggard, Justin McCarthy, 
Walter Besant, Matthew Arnold, Huxley and others. 

Smyth, A. H., The Philadelphia Magazines and their Con- 
tributors. Philadelphia, 1892. 

Southern Literary Messenger, The. Ed. by Edgar Allan Poe. 
Vol. H., Richmond, 1836. 



INDEX 



" Adaptation " of foreign literature, 

108-109 
Advertising, Neglect of paid, 25-26 
American Company of Booksellers, 

22-22, 
American Copyright League, 104 
American literature. Competition 
for in Great Britain, 87 
Competition with that of Great 

Britain, 79-1 11 
Development of traced by study 
of Mathew Carey and suc- 
cessors, viii 
Neglect of, 105 
Read in Europe, 51-53 
American Museum, The, Circula- 
lation of, 8-9 
Contributors to, 6 
Established by Carey, 4 
. General character of, 7-8 
Suspension of, 9, 16 
American Philosophical Society, 

Infrequency of publications, 34 
American Publishers' Copyright 

League, 105 
Appleton, William H., On interna- 
tional copyright, 107 
Arthur, President, On international 
copyright, 104 

Baird, Henry Carey, Opposition to 
international copyright, 107-108 

Bank of the United States, Ques- 
tion of renewal, 54-57 

Bartram, William, Popularity of 
Travels in Europe, 51 

Belknap, Jeremy, Advice regarding 
the establishing of a magazine, 

4-5 
Bibles, First English ones issued in 
America, 30 



Bibliography, 136-139 
Books, Carrying charges of, 18-19 
How distributed, 16-17, 19-23 
List of American printed in 
England, 67 
Bradford, William, Establishes first 
printing press in Philadelphia, 14 
Brown, Charles Brockden, Intro- 
duced by The Columbia 
Magazine, 6 
Lack of early popularity, 51 
Quoted on yellow fever, 9 
British authors, Price of in Amer- 
ica, 93-94 
Bryant, William Cullen, Efforts to 
secure international copyright, 
102-104 
Neglect of in America, 83 

Carey, Mathew, Advice to scholars 
of America, 34 

Aided by Lafayette, 3 

Attempts to reconcile the inter- 
ests of agriculture and of 
manufacture, 42 

Autobiography of, 22 

Bank of the United States, 
Activities in behalf of, 54-57 

Birth and early training, i 

Book trade. Extent of, 15-16 

Business of. How typical of 
entire country, viii— ix 

Cobbett, William, Dispute with, 
10—12 

Composition, Method of, 70—71 

Disinterested spirit of, 38-39, 

58-59 
Emancipation, Essays on, 78 
Emigrates to America, 3 
Establishes, American Museum, 
The, 4 



140 



141 



Columbia Magazine, The, 4 
Pennsylvania Herald, The, 

3 
Thespian Monitor and Dra- 
matic Critic, The, 9 

Fair mindedness of, 72 

Feelings regarding own poli- 
tical activities, 45 

Financial troubles of, 8-9 

Firms of which a member, 
vii— viii 

Franklin, Benjamin, Carey em- 
ployed by, 2 

Frankness of, 43-44 

Greek Revolution, Attitude to- 
wards, 76-77 

Hibernian Society, Organized 

by, 73 
Importance of in American 
literature, vii, 53-54, 111-113 
Importation laws secured by, 38 
Imprisoned in Newgate, 3 
Nullifiers, Appeal to, 44 
Olive Branch, The, 57—64 
Oswald, Colonel Eleazer, Dis- 
pute with, 4 
Patriotism of, 57-64 
Philadelphia Society for the 
Promotion of National Indus- 
try organized by, 38 
Philanthropy of, 69—74 
Poe, Edgar Allan, Opinion of 

Carey, 46-47, "3 
Political economy. Contribu- 
tions to the science of, 38-47 
Printing, Amount of from 

1 792-1 799, 14-15 
Published accounts of, i 
Scholarly ventures of, 34-35 
Service to American history, 7 
Trouble with British govern- 
ment, 2 
Vindiciae Hibernicae, The, 69- 

72 
Yellow fever epidemic, Carey's 
service in, 10 



Campbell, Colonel Robert, Sketch 

of life, 8 1 
Canvassers, Woes of book, 17-18 
Cartwright, Major John, Sketch of 

life, 1 1 7-1 1 8 
Charlotte Temple, Popularity of, 50 
Classics, British printed in Amer- 
ica, 31, 80 
Clay, Henry, On international copy- 
right, 100— lOI 
Cleveland, President, On interna- 
tional copyright, 104 
Cobbett, William, Cooperates with 
Carey in behalf of liberty, 
12, 114-118 
Pamphlet war with Carey, 10-12 
Columbia Magazine, The, Estab- 
lished by Carey, 4 
Introduces Charles Brockden 
Brown, 6 
Company of Stationers of North 

America, Plan for, 19-22 

Competition, Effect of American on 

British literature, 93 

For first copies of American 

books in Great Britain, 87-88 

For first copies of British 

novels, 86-87, 129-131 
Keenness of between American 
and British literature, 18-19 
Constable & Co., Doubtful business 

methods of, 1 29-1 31 
Cooper, James Fenimore, Eleanor 
Wyllis, 19 
Sales of, 89-90 
Copyright, Domestic, 98-99 

International, First examples 
of, in Europe, 96-98 
General sketch of develop- 
ment of, 95-110 
In America, 1 00-110 
Leagues, 105 
Opposition to, 106-107 
Period of, 98-100 
Creagh, William Henry, Attempts 
to establish The European, 65 



142 



Dabney, Richard, Sketch of, 112 

Davidson, Lucretia Maria, Sketch 
of, 90 

Davidson, Margaret Miller, Sketch 
of, 90 

Daye, Stephen, First printing north 
of Mexico by, 13 

Dennie, Joseph, Disbelief in Amer- 
ican culture, 49 

Dickens, Charles, Correspondence 

of, 95, 132-135 
Sales of works in America, 94- 

95 
Dutch, The, Language and liter- 
ature in America, 48 
Their part in early American 
culture, 32 
Dwight, Timothy, Contributes to 
The American Museum, 7 

Ebeling, Christopher Daniel, Estab- 
lishes first regular American- 
European book exchange, 52 
Interest in things American, 53 
Sketch of life of, 52 
Edgeworth, Miss, Popularity in 

America, 80-81 
Emancipation, Carey's attitude 

towards, 78 
Essays on the Public Charities of 

Philadelphia, 75-76 
Estes, Dana, On difficulties of 

American authors, 105 
Exchange lists, 15-17, 19 

Finlaters, James, Typical book order 

(1817) of, 66 
Fitzsimmons, Thomas, Sketch of 

life of, 3 
Franklin, Benjamin, and Andrew 
Bradford issue first monthly 
magazine, 4 
Contributes to The American 

Museum, 5 
Employs Carey as printer, 2 



French, The, Language and litera- 
ture in America, 47 
Their part in early American 
literature, 32 
Freneau, Philip, Contributes to The 
American Museum, 6 
Death Song of a Cherokee 
Indian, 109 

German language and literature in 

America, 48, 79-80, 121 
Germans, The, Their part in early 

American culture, 32 
Germany, American books in, 52-53 
International copyright first 
attempted in, 97 
Great Britain, Beginning of ex- 
change with, 79 
Popularity of American litera- 
ture in, 66—68 
Greek Revolution, Attitude of Carey 

towards, 76-77 
Growoll, A., On the American 
Company of Booksellers, 22 

Harpers', Opposition to interna- 
tional copyright, 104 

Hibernian Society, The, 74 

Humphrey, Colonel David, Contrib- 
utes to The American Museum, 6 

Importation laws. Inadequacy of 
American to protect American 
scholarship and American books, 

37 
Irving, Washington, Financial re- 
turns from works, 91 
Interest in poetry of Margaret 
Miller Davidson, 90 

Jefferson, Thomas, Reading of, 66 
Letters from, 122-124 

Kotzebue, Vogue of, in America, 109 

Lafayette, Aids Carey, 3 



143 



Lea, Charles M., Indebtedness of 

author to, ix 
Lea, Henry C, indebtedness of 
author to, ix 
On international copyright, 107 
On lithography, 28 
On publication of American 
authors in England, 88 
Letters on Religious Persecution, 72 
Lieber, Dr. Francis, Efforts to 
secure international copyright, 

lOI 

Literary output, Meagerness of, in 
America, 6 

Literature, Character of, in 181 7, 66 
New school of, 65 

Lithography, First used in America, 
28, 119 

Lowell, James Russell, On inter- 
national copyright, 106 

Magazine, First monthly in Amer- 
ica, 4 
Tone of first American, 5-6 

Matthews, Professor Brander, On 
international copyright, 96 

Matthews, Cornelius, Efforts for 
international copyright, loi 

Miller, John, Agent for British 
publications, 84-85 

Mitford, Miss, On American lan- 
guage and literature, 67 

Morrill, Senator Lot M., Adverse 
decision on international copy- 
right, 104 

Nationalism, Growth of a feeling 

of in America, 49-50, 65-66 
Neal, John, " Appalls " American 
public, 125-126 
As representative of American 
culture in Great Britain, 
66-67 
New Olive Branch, The, 42 
Newspapers, First established in 
America, 14 



New York Association of Book- 
sellers, 23-24 
Novels, British in America, 84 

First copies of British, how 
obtained, 84-86 

Olive Branch, The, Popularity of, 
62-63 
Reasons for its appearance, 

57-59 
Scope of, 59-62 
Oswald, Colonel Eleazer, Dispute 
with Carey, 4 

Paine, Common Sense, 6 
Pennsylvania Herald, The, Estab- 
lished by Carey, 3 
Philadelphia and New York as rival 
literary centers, 86 
As center of culture, 14 
Opposition to international 
copyright, 107 
Poe, Edgar Allan, Effect of British 
competition on, 92 
Opinion of Carey, 46-47 
Review of Carey's Autobiog- 
raphy, 113 
Poetry, Amount read in America, 

82-83 
Political science. Ignorance of fun- 
damental laws of, in first quarter 
of the 19th century, 41 
Porter, Miss, Popularity in Amer- 
ica, 80-81 
Port Folio, The, As an advertising 

medium, 25-26 
Printing and Publishing, Attempts 
to improve, 22-23 
Beginning of, in America, 13-14 
Difficulties of early in Amer- 
ica, 30 
Ethics of publishing trade in 

1791, 127-128 
Expenses of various classes at 

different periods, 26-28 
Hazards of in America, 88 



144 



Lithography first used in Amer- 
ica, 28, 119 
Reprints of British classics, 31 
Stereotyping first used in 

America, 28 
Wide-spread nature of, 15-16 
Prospects on the Rubicon, 44 
Putnam, George H., On interna- 
tional copyright, 108 
Putnam, George P., Efforts to secure 
international copyright, loi 

Radcliffe, Mrs., Popularity in Amer- 
ica, 84 

Reading, Character of in America 
at end of the 18th and beginning 
of the 19th centuries, 31-32, 120 

Reflections on the Subject of Immi- 
gration from Europe, 72 

Revolution, The, Effect of on print- 
ing and publishing, 30 

Roche, Mrs., Popularity of in 
America, 81-82 

Rowson, Mrs., Popularity as an 
author, 50 

Rush, Dr. Benjamin, Contributes to 
The American Museum, 6 



South America, Publishing enter- 
prises in, 68 

South, The, Extent of book trade in, 
15-16 

Simms, W. Gilmore, Effect of Brit- 
ish competition on, 93, iio-iii 

Stationers' Company of England, 
Its organization and laws, 21-22 

Stedman, E. C, On international 
copyright, 103 

Theater, American, Influence of 

European plays upon, 1 09-1 10 
Thomas, Isaiah, As a publisher, 19 
Traveling, Ease and cheapness of in 

America, 17 
Trent, Professor W. P., Indebted- 
ness of author to, ix 
Quoted on John Neal, 83, on 
Simms, iio-iii 
Trumbull, Contributions of poetry 
to The American Museum, 6 

Venice, Early copyright activities 

in, 96-97 
Vindiciae Hibernicae, The, 69-72 
Vita, 140 



Scholarship, Attitude towards Amer- 
ican, 17-18 

Extent of classical scholarship 
in America in 1823, 35-36 

How retarded in America, 30, 

33-35 
Output of scholar not pro- 
tected, 35-37 
Solemn Warning on the Banks of 

the Rubicon, A, 44 
Souter, John, Agent for American 
books in Great Britain, 87 



War of 1812, Effect on American 

literature, 64-65 
Washington, George, On the utility 

of magazines, 7 
Webster, Noah, Asks Carey to pub- 
lish Progress of Dulness and 
Winthrop's Journal, 7 
On copyright, 99 
Publishing arrangements of, 
127-128 

Yellow fever epidemic, 9-^:0 



VITA 

The author of this dissertation received his secondary train- 
ing in the First Missouri Normal, Kirksville, Missouri. In 1899 
he entered the freshman class of William Jewell College, Lib- 
erty, Missouri. He entered the University of Missouri in 1900, 
and took courses in literature under Professors E. A. Allen, H. 
C. Penn, H. M. Belden, Raymond Weeks, and others, receiving 
the degree of B.A. in 1903. He was enrolled in the graduate 
school of Columbia University, in the Department of EngHsh, 
from 1903 to 1906, and during that time took courses in Com- 
parative Literature under Professor J. E. Spingarn, and in 
English Literature under Professors W. P. Trent, Brander 
Matthews, G. R. Carpenter, W. A. Neilson (now of Harvard 
University), F. T. Baker, G. P. Krapp, W. W. Lawrence, and 
Dr. C. M. Hathaway. He received the degree of A.M. in 1904. 
In 1906-7 he was Instructor in English in the University of 
Missouri. He took work under Professor Henry Sweet and 
others at Oxford University in 1907. During 1907-8 he was 
a student at the University of Berlin. Here he worked under 
Professors Alois Brandl, W. H. Schofield (Exchange Pro- 
fessor from Harvard University), Dr. Delmer, and others. 
During the Summer School of Columbia University for 1910, 
he was a student under Professor Harry Ayers. He was 
Instructor in English at the University of Illinois from 1908 
to 191 1. In 191 1 he was appointed to a position at Dartmouth 
College. 



145 



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